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mercy_n jesus_n sin_n sinner_n 3,659 5 7.4408 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A45360 The sacred method of saving humane souls by Jesus Christ by Henry Hallywell ... Hallywell, Henry, d. 1703? 1677 (1677) Wing H466; ESTC R13918 47,634 128

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Life and Nature to a participation of it again And this he hath done by sending his own Son into the World to become an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of all Mankind For should God have cast Men off for ever and thrown them into Hell though he had still been Just and Righteous in his Actions and declared but a high dislike of that which his Essential Holiness could never patronize or countenance yet his Goodness and Love had not so conspicuously and gloriously appeared On the other hand should God have received the World into grace and favour forgiving their Iniquities without any previous satisfaction for sin though he might have done this without any breach of the Eternal Purity and Justice of his Nature yet he had not so sensibly affected the minds of Men with his just aversation of sin nor so effectually discovered to them his Anger and Displeasure against all evil and wickedness But now in the Death of Jesus Christ God has reconciled Goodness and Holiness Justice and Mercy punishing sin and yet saving the sinner Behold therefore and wonder at the Ineffable Goodness and Transcendent love of God! Could not Man redeem his Brother and give unto God a Ransome for him No surely for that Sacrifice that is presented and offered up to God must be without spot and blemish but when the Lord looked down from Heaven upon the Children of Men he beheld them all gone aside and become filthy so that there was not one that did good no not one But if this might not be yet could not God have declared his will to us by an Angel by a Voice from Heaven or by uniting himself to the Angelical Nature Certainly he might but none of these ways could have been with such endearing circumstances with such sensible Testimonies of dear Compassion and Benignity as enravish ingenuous Minds into sutable Returns and expressions of love Jesus Christ therefore the Delights of his Father the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image and character of his Person took flesh and dwelt among us He that was in the form of God clothed with all the Majesty and Glory of the supramundane life yet emptyed himself of all this unspeakable Felicity and took upon him the form of a Servant i. e. an Earthly or a body of flesh and blood in opposition to that state which he before called the form of God and being found in that servile scheme he humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the Death of the Cross What higher expressions of love can Humane Understandings possibly conceive than these The endearing love of Friends could never give any greater evidence of it self than that they lay down their lives one for another but such was the transcendent love of Jesus that he dyed for Rebels for Apostates from that sacred life of God to which alone the Soveraign Command and Rule both of Heaven and Earth does of right belong Behold him a Man of sorrows exposed to the envy hatred and malice of the cruel and unbelieving Jews and yet so inwardly affected with tenderness and commiseration towards them that he omits nothing which a Heart enflamed with love and compassion could do to make them happy And though God in his Eternal Wisdome foresaw the accursed Disposition of the Jewish Nation who as they had been heretofore thirsty after the blood of the Prophets and righteous Men so now would never leave till they had satiated their Revenge in the Blood of his only begotten Son yet he delivers him up into their hands for so the Apostle speaks that they had taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him that was given out of the protecting hand and providence of God to the will of his Enemies A love which the Tongues of Men and Angels are never able sufficiently to express And as the Infinite love of God appears in this way of saving Men by Christ Jesus so his severity and hatred against sin is no less manifest and conspicuous for in that God spared not his own Son but delivered him up to Death it is a sufficient proof and Argument of his utter Detestation of all sin and evil No circumstance of his bitter Passion but speaks forth the heavy wrath and indignation of God against sin When he came into the Garden of Gethsemane where began the first Scene of his Tragical Passion the Scripture tells us that he was sore amazed and very heavy and this inward grief and ineffable trouble of his soul he expresses in that Passionate speech to his Disciples My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto Death not only extensively such as must last till Death it self do end it but likewise intensively so great as is usually at the very point of Death And whence arose this sorrow It was not out of any cowardly fear of pain and death for knowing all things that should come upon him yet with a firm constancy and sedate Resolution of mind he comes to his implacable Enemies at Jerusalem and when he was betrayed in the Garden he willingly offers himself into their hands I am he Though certain it is our Blessed Saviour bearing about him our Humane Nature was likewise subject to all the harmless Passions and affections of it and was so far from that Stoical stubbornness and insensibility that his Passive and tender Constitution filled him with grief and yielded to the fear of pain and Death Nor did his sorrow proceed from any displeasure of God against his Person for he being perfectly obedient and fully and exactly conformable to his Fathers will it could not be that he should groan under the anger and wrath of God Nor was it altogether Bodily pains that made him so but there was something extraordinary As 1. A withdrawing the sensibleness of Divine Assistance from him As the Sun at our Saviour's Crucifixion though not disjoyned from the World yet for a time deserted the World by withdrawing his light from it And although this withholding the sensibleness of the Divine Presence was done without any Aversation and dislike of the Person of our blessed Lord which not only before but at that very instant was tenderly beloved of God yet the Apprehension of it could not but make him bemoan his case in that sad exclamation My God my God why or how hast thou forsaken me 2. Because then all the Powers of Hell and darkness were let loose upon him The Prince of Darkness with his accursed Legions did then as we may reasonably suppose appear to him in the most affrighting and dreadful forms and by the Permission of Divine Providence exerted and tryed the utmost of their Insulting Rage in these their last and most furious Assaults the Conquest and Victory over whom being to be atchieved not by the Divine Power but by the Piety and Obedience of our Saviour he falls into an Agony and an Angel descends from