Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	jesus_n	sin_n	sinner_n	3,659	5	7.4408	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66102	Impenitent sinners warned of their misery and summoned to judgment delivered in two sermons, the former on the Sabbath, Nov. 6, the other on the lecture following, Nov. 10, 1698, occasioned by the amazing instance of a miserable creature who stood condemned for murdering her infant begotten in whoredom : to which are subjoyned the solemn words spoken to her on those opportunities, published for the warning of others / by Samuel Willard.	Willard, Samuel, 1640-1707.	1698 (1698)	Wing W2281; ESTC R30203	31,791	66

not have driven you to have sought unto God for grace to prevent you and for forgiveness and peace through the blood of Christ Had not your heart been desperately obdurate would you when by your most egregious wickedness you had again fallen into your former sin have run your self over such a precipice as this to expose your self by adding of Murder to Whoredoms to have your life taken away from you by the Hand of Justice but rather have sought your peace with God Had not your heart been harder than an Adamant would not the horridness of that Sin of Murder which without all reason and by an unaccountable desperateness you precipitated your self into have made you to relent whereas instead of discovering a broken heart and a contrite spirit upon a reflection on it your whole carriage both before and at your Trial and at the very pronouncing of a Sentence of Death upon you hath been such and so stupendous as hath put a grief of heart into all that fear God who have either seen it or heard of it what do you think this Impenitency will lead to at length if God do not graciously heal you of it 3. See what a little time you have left you and how soon your case will be determined for Eternity I know that there is never a bold and secure Sinner in the Congregation who can tell but that he may be Cited before Gods Tribunal sooner than you shall and had therefore need to see to his own concern But this you know that you are dead in the Law and may every day expect to have the Warrant Signed and warning given you to go to Execution Well bethink your self no more opportunity for the securing your Souls Eternal Welfare is before you When once you are dead you are fixed unchangeably if your peace be not made before then you are gone for ever And Oh what a great work have you to do in a little time and the Lord knows whether at present it be so much as begun in you yea there are fearful tokens that it is not Oh that this pungent word may by his grace give a forcible stroak unto it 4. Suitably repent of all your follies in particular Repentance and Pardon are inseparable you are told who it is that hath the dispensation of both viz. Christ Acts 5. 31. him hath God exalted with his Right-hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins and be sure to seek to him for it as you hope to obtain it let all the obstinacy and hardness of heart which you have laboured of be exceeding bitter to you call all your sins to remembrance and let every one of them be confessed bewailed apart and more peculiarly those sins that have brought you to this your pride your disobedience to your Parents your impatience of Family Government your company keeping your Whoredoms and your despising of Christ who hath offered himself to you and let all this lead you to the fountain of Iniquity to the source or original of all abominations and make you to consess with David Psal 51. 5. behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me Beware of hiding excusing extenuating falsely denying of any thing wherein the Glory of God is concerned what said he to Achan when Gods Providence had discovered him Josh 7. 19. My son give glory to the Lord God of Israel make confession to him and be sure to pour out your heart besore God with the most aggravating acknowledgments in all the circumstances with deepest self loathings and hatred of your sins utterly renouncing of them remember what is said Prov. 28. 13. he that covereth his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh shall have mercy 5. Now humbly betake your self to the blood of sprinkling come to the fountain opened to be washed in there is enough in the blood of Christ for your pardon and healing 1 Joh. 1. 7. the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin there wants not vertue in him to save such an one as you are for we are assured Heb. 7. 25. he is able to save to the uttermost 1 Tim. 1. 15. Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom I am chief Isa 1. 18 though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool There have as great sinners as you sought mercy and found it God can be just and yet forgive your sin he can get himself a name and exalt the glory of his grace in you he can make those ●alls of yours to be the occasions of his appearing in his grace the more eminently to you in his humbling healing and pardoning of you and so making it to appear in you how much more that can do for the saving of a Soul than a vile hardned sinner can do for her own undoing Only beware of cheating your self by any fond presumptions of mercy though you live in your Impenitence or of supposing that you can comply with the terms of peace in your own strength but carefully spend the residue of your little time in lying prostrate at the footstool of the throne of Soveraign Grace looking up to him who hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and with repeated earnestness cease not to offer up that petition to him while you have any breath left in you Psal 25. 11. For thy name sake Oh Lord pardon mine Iniquity for it is great A Citation TO Judgment after DEATH Hebr. IX 27. And after this the Judgment THIS Verse is the protasis of a comparison which the Apostle makes use of in his Discourse which needs not for the present be insisted on or laid open in as much as we have now to do but with the general Doctrine contained in the words themselves Among all those things which men are invited to the serious contemplation of there are none that carry more of solemnity in them than those of Death and Judgment because the former of these puts an end to mans life and time and opportunities and the other disposeth them to an Everlasting and Unchangeable Estate Death it felf is stiled a King of Terrours in the Holy Scriptures and the Philosopher could call it TON PHOBERON PHOBERATATON of fearful things the most fearful but that which adds to the tremendousness of it is that it is a passage to the great and last Judgment which the ignorant Gentiles had but dark notice of but is evidently manifested in the Word of God which we Christians are favoured withal The verse before us gives us an intimation of both these and of the certainty of them as things which are appointed The word appointed signifies both a designation a reservation of a thing notifying that as there is an Eternal purpose for it in the Decree of God so it is his fixt and unchangeable will that it shall so

doth not save them in their folly but from it God hates sin and it is his holy and pure nature that is displayed in his so doing as Hab. 1. 13. thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity There must therefore be a change wrought in them they must be cured of this distemper in order to their obtaining of this priviledge though God be Gracious yet he is Holy and will not baulk this Holiness of his but display it in the application of his grace to sinful men There must therefore a work of Sanctification pass upon them in which Sin must be subdued and grace must be implanted in them 4. That God offers this wisdom to all that live under the Gospel and invites them to seek to him for it Herein God shews his good will to such in that he hath told them wherein the true wisdom consists Job 28. 28. to man he saith the fear of God that is wisdom and to depart from evil is understanding and hath pointed them to know where it is treasured viz. in Christ Col. 2. 13. in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom knowledge bids them come to him for it and encourageth them so to do Jam. 1. 5. if any of you lack wisdom let him ask it of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him yea and expostulates with sinners about their refusing of it as one that is grieved Prov. 1. 22. how long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and ye scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge 5. Hence it is by their impenitency that Sinners procure this to themselves If they would have hearkened to Gods voice and received instruction it had not been so but because they have hardened their hearts against all Counsel and would not receive his reproofs though he followed them with repeated cries and calls and tried all courses with them unto wonderful long suffering he therefore puts them out of his sight and they shall fall before his judgment hitherto therefore God reduceth the reason and lays the charge on which the threatning is built Prov. 1. 24 c. because I have called and ye refused c. I will also laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh c. Prop. III. That this will render them extreamly miserable The Psalmist is here setting forth the miserable state of Impenitent Sinners and the summe of all infelicity is contained in this very thing Observe therefore 1. That it is a woful infelicity for a Sinner to be every day exposed to destruction to have the Wrath of God continually impending over him to be in the state mentioned Psal 7. 11. God is angry with the wicked every day to have the Arm of Divine Vengeance up with the glittering Sword of revenging Justice ready to give him the deadly stroak to have nothing before him but a fearful expectation of fiery indignation which shall devour him when it lights upon him in the fulness of his strength and folly to fall upon him and send him down to the pit of endless misery such is the condition of impenitent sinners at the best read at leisure Job 18. 5. to end and you shall find it there astonishingly described and see 1 Thes 5. 3. when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape 2. Their condition must needs be fearful who shall fall before God in the judgment who shall not be able to stand when they shall appear before him in the great and terrible day It is a dreadful thing to stand at an Humane Bar and to have sentence of death pronounced upon one by the Judge it fills the by standers with consternation and what horror hath seized such as have been under it What shrieks and cries have they uttered what will it then be when the Judge of all the Earth shall say to the man as Mat. 21. 41. Depart thou cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Which Sentence will be immediately followed with as terrible an Execution and yet such is the portion of Impenitent Sinners 3. That to lose the sight and favour of God for ever is the quintessence of everlasting miseries what saith the Psalmist Psal 30. 5. in thy favour is life 63. 3. thy loving kindness is better than life 16. ult in thy presence is fulness of joys and the Apostle thought he had backed his Exhortation with a most potent argument in Heb. 12. 14. follow after Holiness without which no man shall see God in his light only can we see light and there is nothing but outer darkness out of it he that loseth God loseth all there is nothing but destruction that accompanieth this exclusion Hos 9. 12. Wo to them when I depart from them they fall under Gods indignation and we are told Psal 11. 6. upon the wicked he shall rain snares fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest this shall be the portion of their cup how miserable then must these forlorn creatures needs be USE I. Learn hence the grievous folly of those that embolden themselves in sin on presumption of Gods mercy The truth is the foolishness of Impenitency in nothing appears more than in the arguings by which men strengthen themselves in it and among these I know none more amazing than the delusion of a falsE hope in mercy notwithstanding men persist in iniquity and refuse to return this is that which God complains of Psal 50. 21. these things thou hast done and I kept silence thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thy self And the Prophet urgeth it on them Jer. 7. 9 10. Will you steal murder commit adultery c. and come and stand c. and say we are delivered to do all these abominations As if God had no other way to shew himself merciful but by saving sinners in their sins whereas we are told that Christs great design is to save them from their sins Matth. 1. 21. Hence we have God using that Sarcasm Isa 27. 4. Fury is not in me who would set the briars and thorns against me in battel I would go through them I would burn them together and drawing up that sentence verse 11. It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will shew them no favour But men forget that God hath a revenging Justice to glorify in the Obstinate as well as Mercy on the Penitent and whiles men thus nourish a vain hope to gratify their own lusts they lose the Opportunity of mercy and lay up treasures of wrath than which what madness can be more pernicious USE II. Let it then be a word of warning and terrour to Impenitent Sinners under the Gospel I know none that carries more of dread