Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	hear_v	lord_n	sin_n	15,720	5	5.7661	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66966	An historical narration of the life and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ in two parts.	R. H., 1609-1678.	1685 (1685)	Wing W3448; ESTC R14750	308,709	352

doing the more hurt to them and others and that if permitted they would have as soon dispatched the two possessed as they did the swine though to their own dammage and their incurring perhaps some of those greater sufferings they so much deprecated Meanwhile our Lord who well foreknew what would be the issue yet for many good reasons might permit the fact first hereby to shew more manifestly what a number of Devils were ejected out of the man by their dislodging none being indulged to have more than one into such a number of swine and what a preservation thus the whole country received from our Lord. 2ly Again hereby to make a tryal of the virtue of the Gadarens whether for the freedom and redemption of those miserable objects of their pitty their brethren and fellow-citizens out of the cruel hands of so many Devils they would resign and take chearfully the loss of some of the most unclean and unnecessary of their goods which loss the owners of them being so many to any single person might not be great as also to shew us how much the saving of another man is to be valued beyond that of our own estate 3ly Perhaps also since these creatures are unprofitable any way save for food and this prohibited the Jews Levit. 7. ●1 Deut. 14.8 to punish thus a fault in the owners of them if Israelites nourishing such numbers of them which were only saleable to strangers and neglecting provisions more serviceable to their own people or Country Or if these swine kept by forraigners only to punish the affront and contempt thus offered to the Jewish Nation and their laws in a country rightly belonging to their possession 4ly Lastly to shew the perpetual mischiefs and damages these evil Spirits could and would do even to any thing belonging to us if they were not restrained by the divine goodness § 224 These and many other good ends might be of such a permission But this accident according to the rudeness of that people had a much contrary effect For the swine-keepers hasting into the Town and declaring our Lords arrival there and what had happened to the two miserable possessed men also what to the swine the inhabitants presently upon it before our Lord entred into their city went forth to prevent him And though they could not but have heard of our Lords many miracles wrought elsewhere and many among themselves had need of the like mercies and though the loss of their goods was no way valuable to the salvation both of their souls and bodies by this gracious visit of the Messias had no sence of such happiness But instead of returning our Lord thanks for the poor mens delivery out of such a slavery beheld by them now sober and clothed and magnifying our Lord and humbly sitting at his feet instead of sitting down with them and hearing his Divine words or bringing their sick to him and inviting him and his Disciples into their City being much offended with what had passed and dreading rather what might happen upon such another dispossession to the rest of their goods intreated our Lord to leave their coasts as if the Devils after leaving the swine had seized upon them § 225 But meanwhile by such a notable circumstance of the loss of the swine the fame of our Lords miracle on the possessed and soveraignty over such an army of devils was rendred much greater And from hence also may be observed that God many times in this world but alwaies for the more advancing our salvation hereafter doth not his favours so gratis that they shall be qualified on our side with no other Crosses by which price as it were we may seem to purchase them of him though the one be unconsiderable in respect of the other There must be here usually some tarantello joyned with the bello And these people by the undiscreet impatience of a small damage with which our Lord made the tryal of them lost an unvaluable treasure and reward for it viz. the Gospel that now came to visit them and the rescue of their whole country from the spiritual slavery of Satan § 226 Our meek Lord to this uncivil and ingrateful carriage and treatment of the Gadarens whose City as Josephus saith De Bell. Judaic 5. c. 3. was the chief Metropolis of that whole country and who were the only people that whilst all the world courted and run after him desired to be rid of him making no reply and being not departed far from the Ship that brought him returned into it not receiving for himself or his poor Disciples the least hospitality or refreshment from them and as he had said a little before to the Scribe not having there where to lay his Head Only the man that was dispossessed of the Legion cured we see in soul as well as body followed still after him and when they took shipping desired he might go with them perhaps having some fears lest left behind the Devils expell'd should reseize upon him But it was our Lords pleasure that he should rather abide in his own Country that had seen his former misery and He who elsewhere forbad others to speak of the cures and mercies shewed them yet commands him there to publish the miracle he had wrought and proclame how great things God to whom our Lord here for our example ascribes his good actions had done for him and had had compassion on him to publish it I say in a place where they were so little sensible of it Nordid our Lord that we read of ever return to this place again observing that lesson he gave to his Disciples not to cast pearls before swine nor force the Gospel and religion and as it were endeavour to break open the dores of mens understandings upon them that teaching being most what without success that is not willingly received Unless we may imagine this repulse came from the Divine Providence that this eastern side of the Lake half-Gentile as the great number of their swine also intimates should not as yet be enlightened with the Gospel as neither the Samaritans till it first amply preached to the main body of the 12 Tribes § 227 From hence our Lord returned to Capernaum his usual retreat and to his accustomed lodging there probably the house of S. Peter and perhaps they for this expecting custome from him and Peter he ordered him to pay it the report of his return spread abroad a multitude or people so many saith the Evangelist as there was no roome to receive them even about the door gathered to him to hear his Sermons and to bring to him their sick among which multitude were many great persons Pharisees and Doctors of the Law come from Judea as well as Galilee In the house then he taught the people and healed all the sick that could get to him the Pharisees and Doctors as persons of more note there sitting by him and narrowly observing all his words and actions §

thereof but also as a door of entrance into the Church family and houshold of God and into a new Covenant with God for the time to come by which from Abrahams daies till the accomplishment of our redemption this family was distinguished from all the rest of the world and a strict pact and Covenant passed between God and all such persons for the future whereby they engaged themselves on their parts to walk sincerely in his laws in newness of life as his obedient Children receiving then as it were a new nature as well as a name and God engaged on his part to be their Father and protector and exceeding great reward in bestowing upon them the inheritance and possession of an heavenly Canaan Now as to such significations of Circumcision and the other Church Sacraments though not as to the real effect of them upon him as the effect of the Sacrament is also by others many times had before the receit thereof these were more compleatly fulfilled in our Lord than in any other For he entred into the Church and houshold of God not as a simple member but as the Father and Head thereof not as a Son of God by Adoption but as that true natural Son and seed through whose merits all others entred into this Covenant of Grace As for the performance of the Condition of this Covenant never any undertook and walked therein in such perfect obedience and new life and circumcision of all carnal and rebellious lusts as himself Nor ever any received so high an eternal inheritance from God by vertue of this Covenant observed as his Humanity did § 52 But 2ly yet further as Circumcision hath relation to fin so the humility of our Lord also entertained both it and all other sacred expiations of guilt in the disguise of a sinner For his eternal wisdom thought meet for the more proper and satisfactory destroying of sin to cloth himself in the likeness of sin and to take all the appurtenances and shames thereof save only the very guilt it self which his purity could not admit and being without sin to suffer to the utmost what to other sinners was due and to perform to the utmost what of others as sinners was required That he might thus as it were in their stead give all satisfaction to his Fathers justice in his sufferings and to his laws in his obedience to his laws not only the Moral first given to man in innocence but also the Ceremonial prescribed to sinners for remission of guilt in observing which Ceremonies they also a second time failed and so these also as well as the Moral were a hand-writing against them Coloss 2.14 Eph. 2.16 There therefore he also undertook that by the merit of his exact observing these laws and satisfying his Fathers justice therein he might remove also this second hard and unsupportable yoke from off their necks Act. 15.10 and purchase for them the perfect spiritual effects thereof So by Christs Circumcision saith the Apostle Col. 2.14 Eph. 2.15 Gal. 3.24 25. Gal. 4.3 4.9 we are circumcised with the Circumcision made without hands in out putting off the body of the sins of the flesh which cleansing from carnal lusts is the Spiritual Grace of the carnal Circumcision § 53 Again the Ministry of the Baptist succeeding that of the law who was sent to sinners with a baptism of repentance to prepare them for receiving afterward from our Lord the baptism of the Spirit our Lord hasted now again among other sinners to receive from John this baptism of repentance and to fulfil this righteousness or duty of sinners as if he had bin a sinner too to the wonder of the Baptist to whom God then revealed him and his all-sanctity and after it he betook himself to a long penance of solitude in a desert of fasting and praier accompanied also with strong temptations from Satan for six weeks and afterward all his life long he endured reproaches as a sinner Rom. 15.3 and though the Holy one of God he sequestred not himself from the more publick offenders but conversed freely with them not out of love to sin but to the sinners though it turned much to his disesteem and prejudice with those who pretended more sanctity among the people § 54 Thus he not only as the second Adam descending from heaven entred upon the first Covenant of works Hocfac vives and fully performed the natural or moral law in all the points thereof but also as a Son of Adam faln and taking upon him the curse of his sin though not deriving from him the guilt of it he entred upon the Covenants of Grace and expiations of sin made with Abraham and the Patriarks and in the stead of sinners performed exactly all the Ceremonial Law as it related to sin and thus by his perfect obedience became heir of the Promises of the eternal inheritance made first to Adam for his works and then to Abraham for his faith and by these his merits whilst he owed nothing of what he did and suffered for himself became also the purchaser of mercy and of remission of sin and of the Spirit for all other sinners believing in him by which Spirit they are also enabled to keep the Covenant of Grace and to inherit the promises made to it Rom. 8.3 4. Gal. 3.14 ●4 6 § 55 This Digression perhaps not unprofitably made to shew to them more clearly the motives or reasons of the Circumcision of our Lord. Now I proceed Next At the Circumcision as being the Sacrament of Regeneration and admission into Gods Covenant family and Son-ship under the law accordingly a new name was given to the circumcised imposed by the Parents or more usually by the Mother See Gen. 4.1.25 16.11 29.32 1 Sam. 4.21 Esai 7.14 a name which ordinarily signifyed something that related to piety and Religion in reviving the memory of some former holy Person or thing in acknowledging some special favour or Grace received from the divine Majesty in devoting the circumcised to some virtues or qualities acceptable to God or also when the name was imposed by God or persons directed by his Spirit foretelling the nature actions and successes of the person circumcised God also many times by his secret providence guiding the Parents though knowing nothing to give such names as do correspond to future events Hence also as was said in the first institution of Circumcision were two new names given by God to Abraham and to his wife § 56 n. 1. When therefore this Son of God came to be circumcised God his Father appointed his name to be Jesus or Jeshua as he was called in the Syriack the language which the Jews then ordinarily spake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or us being the Greek and Latine terminations thereof i. e. Saviour God signifying this before-hand by an Angel first to his Mother at his Conception and afterward to Joseph her husband upon his first discerning her to be with Child specifying then