Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	heart_n	let_v	lord_n	11,278	5	4.0773	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93277	Two books of Mr Sydrach Simpson, late master of Pembroke-Hall in Cambridg; and preacher of the Gospel in London. Viz. I. Of unbelief; or the want of readiness to lay hold on the comfort given by Christ. II. Not going to Christ for life and salvation is an exceeding great sin, yet it is pardonable. In the first book is shewed (besides many other things) 1 What unbelief it is that is here spoken of ... 7 Helps to attain readiness in beleeving. In the second book is shewed, 1 That unbelief is a great sin, and exceeding provoking unto God ... 7 God hath pardoned unbelief, and wil pardon it.	Simpson, Sidrach, 1600?-1655.; Nye, Philip, 1596?-1672.; Loder, John, 1625 or 6-1673.	1658 (1658)	Wing S3827; Thomason E962_1-2; ESTC R203574	187,195	298

their unbelief Math. 13.58 No great works The meaning of the place is this that God doth do unto men according to their Faith According to thy Faith be it unto thee Math. 9.29 As mens Faith is so shall their receiving be If their Faith be mingled with unbelief their receipt shall be but small Where there is a totall unbelief their receipt shall be nothing from God OBJECT But you wil say unto me as it is said in 2 Tim. 2.13 If we beleeve not yet he remains faithful and he cannot deny himself Answ To that I answer If we beleeve not that is if we beleeve not some particular Promise and at some particular time God will abide faithfull for if you observe the place it speaks concerning suffering times and this Promise viz That if we suffer with him we shall also raign with him A man may come to the stake and to his Grave and yet notwithstanding want a perswasion of this A man may dy by his act of affiance and yet have no perswasion of what assistance he shall have in his sufferings But if a man beleeve not that is not at al then nothing is due unto him Mark the Text again God saith he is faithfull Therefore his faithfulness supposeth his Promise And his Promise supposeth our Faith for he is ingaged to none but to them that beleeve Therefore though God abides faithfull yet the meaning is though we question this and that at this and that time yet if our hearts remain faithfull to God and his name we shall receive the things that are promised Therefore let me speak unto you and unto you especially that can settle upon any work but the work of beleeving that are easily perswaded that the Promises belong not to you nor the mercies which are saving with a small hint and insinuation you are discouraged and disheartned Let me speak unto you that are ready to deprive your selves of every sweet morsell which the hand of the Lord reaches out to you who say within your selves when I am thus and can do thus then I will beleeve and go unto Jesus Christ You must come unto this if you wil have any thing from the hand of Jesus Christ to beleeve You must lay down your reason and your sense and you must put your selves to this question Ask thy own heart whether thou wouldest have Jesus Christ or not If it would have him and the things that are his then tell it that it must beleeve for there is no way to receive but by beleeving Therefore let me give this counsell to thee Spend that time in drawing and urging thy Soul to go to Jesus Christ which thou dost in disputing thy right and title and in answering objections and doubts In stead of making out a reflect act of Faith or assurance go directly unto the Lord Jesus Christ And mark the reason of it Faith it gives a title and the possession of the inheritance It 's a receiving Now mark Be sure thar thou hast a right If thou hast a Faith that is alwaies having and craving and longing and hankering after the things of Jesus Christ it is right And again Though that every Commandment of God be to be obeyed and none ought to be more carefull of holiness than he that is justified by the righteousness of another and by the Faith of Jesus I say none ought to be more carefull of a holy life than a Beleever yet spend thy time mark what I say and thy spirits first in receiving and getting Jesus Christ Go not this way to work when thou findest thy self to be so and so then thou wilt beleeve because thou art holy therefore thou goest to Jesus Christ But go to Jesus Christ that thou maiest receive holiness from him for Faith is a receiving As eating a mans meat takes up a great deal of time yet there is no time lost because it fits a man for his work afterwards So the fitter thou wilt be to all the works of sanctification the more time thou spendest in receiving and eating of the things of Jesus Christ It is wisdom first for a man to get in a fulness afterwards to live answerable unto it Why dost thou think of thy sanctification when thou hast not received him that must make thee holy Assure thy self it cannot be but al the things thou goest about will grow dead because thou hast not wherewith to maintain them Al thy motions are but like a Wheel which is hurried by a violent motion but having no spring in its self in a little while it wil grow dead And assure thy self that thou shalt not lay a ground of Faith by doings Doings may lay a ground of assurance but not a ground of receiving or going unto Jesus Christ It is true Many things are to be done as well as beleeving when a man would receive A man must ask that he may receive John 16.24 And a man must be mortified that he may receive Ye ask and receive not because you ask to spend upon your lusts Jam. 4.3 And a man must be humble Jam. 4.6 God giveth Grace to the humble And the Ordinances must be attended even every of them for it oft times fals out that that Ordinance which is neglected is that by which God will convey himself But the Ordinances are but the Vessels in the hand of Faith they are but Buckets which Faith doth let down or but Breasts which Faith doth suck The Receiving is still by Faith Heb. 4.2 And therefore the word profited not because it was not mixed with Faith And the Text saith If they praied and beleev●d they should then receive It 's true there are a great many Graces that must be in the man that receives any thing from Gods hands but they are all but the attendants of Faith They are necessary unto Faith Not for reception but by way of presence As the Eye alone sees though it cannot see unless it be joyned to the other members of the body So Faith receives though it never receives but when it is joyned with other Graces Whatever Graces are required unto Faith Faith will help us unto To pray acceptably If we are to pray with humility and submission Faith will help us to it When once Faith is infused it doth dispose and inable the heart to every thing that God requires Besides you know how a man that is touched with covetousness and the love of the world wil bow down himself and deny himself much and become base that he may heap up riches together So wil a man when he hath once gotten Faith He wil pray earnestly and go from ordinance to ordinance and submit to any condition that the ordinances of Jesus Christ require at his hands that he may serve God and be saved And therefore again and again I say If you wil receive any thing you must beleeve else there is no way for it If you wil stand reasoning and disputing and debating

6. In that its joy is full when it comes to know that it hath by Faith received Jesus Christ FOr the further discovery therefore of this joy and Faith wherein this willingness to beleeve and love of Christ appears I shall name these six particulars First Wherever there is true Faith in any measure the Soul doth love to hear the Doctrine of faith of Jesus Christ Of al truths that is most pleasing And most pleasing not only because it 's most profitable but because it 's most self-denying If so be the Soul would make its choice or call for any thing out of the Book of God before another it should be for somthing that laies open Christ and presseth beleeving on him How beautifull are the Feet of them that bring glad tidings Rom. 10.15 How beautifull that is they are as lovely as can be Nay so lovely as no words are able to express How beautifull The Apostle Paul did desire to know nothing among the Corinthians but Jesus Christ and him crucified 1 Cor. 2.2 that is he desired to make nothing else known And look what it was in him preaching so in every Beleever In Phil. 3.10 That I may know him and the power of his Death and the vertue of his Resurrection These things a man loves and he loves to hear spoken of and discoursed of Evil men therefore do love corrupt words and unsavory language Beleevers they love to hear of Jesus Christ His name is sweet and precious Not only to hear of him as a story but as a person whereof there is need and of whom there is use and absolute necessity unto salvation First I say the heart loves to hear of Jesus Christ Acts 13.42 When the Apostle had preached in the name of Christ all that were good came to him and prayed him to preach that over the next Sabbath day or as it is in some translations between this and the next Sabbath day as the word may well be rendred And he did as you may read there As in John 6. they cryed out ever more give us this bread so the poor Soul desires to hear of that again and again When Lidia heard Paul preach Jesus Christ she attended as one that would not lose a fillable nor a word of what was spoken concerning jesus Christ Acts 16.14 How heautifull as I said before are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of peace It is good to love the Law of God which teacheth a man his duty like one that is carefull to do his masters will Psal 1.2 He meditates therein day and night But it 's a better sign for a man to love the Gospel of Jesus Christ the glad tidings of him As I shal shew you if I come to it that there is not only as great honor given unto God thereby but thereby a man if more humbled and abased in himself and made nothing than by all that obedience which the Law requires or by all that sense of misery that the Law works in us because we have not done our duty A man hath meaner thoughts of himself when he thinks he must beleeve or he cannot be saved than he hath when he thinks if he be called to an account he must needs perish because he hath transgressed Gods Law The soul loves that law which shews its own face in a glass with al its spots upon it But it loves that glass better in which it beholds the face of God For thereby it is transformed from Glory to Glory 2 Cor. 3. last Out of a spirit of indignation and wrath against a mans selfe and sin a man is glad to heare any thing that can be against himself and his sin But out of a love of Christ and out of the love of greater excellencies in Christ then is in a mans self a man is glad to heare rather of Christ then of himself his name is as ointment powred forth Cant. 1.3 There is nothing in the scripture but what is sweet and as hony But the Gospel is as the hony-comb The whole scripture is as a sugared cup But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is as the bottom of that cup. Secondly Where ever there is true faith there is a desire and longing after Faith and Jesus Christ As new borne babes as the Text saith in 1. Pet. 2.3 A desire formally O Lord said the Disciples unto Jesus Christ increase our faith O Lord that we may receive our sight For its faith alone that makes us see the things freely given us of God and to know the treasury of grace and mercy which doth and hath lain hid from eternity And so there is also a vertual desire after Christ in al beleevers They long after the meanes whereby faith is wrought If you have rasted how good the Lord is As new borne babes you wil desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby Though that a Child cannot distinguish rationally between the Milk of the breast and that which is sugared It cannot tel that this is the one and this is the other But it hath a tast by which it can and nothing pleaseth but the mothers breast The Child cannot ask for it nor describe it but you may know it loves it because it is stilled with it and quieted with it So may be the case of many a Christian He may not be able by reason or by discourse or argument to make out the desirableness of Jesus Christ above al other things the excellencies of Jesus Christ above al other waies There may be Rhetorick put upon al other things beyond al that which he can see through or put upon the things of Jesus Christ But you wil find his heart quieted with nothing but Jesus Christ Let him pray with never so much in largedness and affections let him hear with never so much understanding and live with never so much unblameableness in the world yet al this is nothing his heart is unquiet because it is not according to what the law requires And if he sees no fault in it yet there is fault which the pure eyes of God behold when he comes to look it through and through And he hath no peace but when he comes to beleeve in Jesus Christ and receive peace from him What is there in al the meanes of salvation which thou longest after What is it which thou wouldest carry home with thee Is it somthing that may draw Jesus Christ nearer to thee and make him more lovely to thee So much thou mayest conceive of hope of thy state of Salvation The Love of Jesus Chrst is described by this that nothing gives the heart so much quiet and in nothing is the heart so much taken up and contented as it is with this that Jesus Christ is the Mediator and undertaker and is the surety and doth al with the father And that It doth do al with the father by him The heart being pleased and contented argues