Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A27051
|
A treatise of knowledge and love compared in two parts: I. of falsely pretended knowledge, II. of true saving knowledge and love ... / by Richard Baxter ...
|
Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
|
1689
(1689)
|
Wing B1429; ESTC R19222
|
247,456
|
366
|
on his truth and mercies But God will not lose his knowledge of me nor turn away his mercy from me The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his and let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 He can call me his Child when I doubt whether I may call him Father He doubteth not of his right to me nor of his graces in me when I doubt of my sincerity and part in him Known unto God are all his works Act. 15.18 What meaneth Paul thus to describe a state of grace Gal. 4.9 Now after ye have known God or rather are known of of God but to notify to us that though our knowledge of God be his grace in us and our evidence of his love and the beginning of life eternal Joh. 17.3 yet that we are loved and known of him is the first and last the foundation and the perfection of our security and felicity He knoweth his Sheep and none shall take them out of his hand When I cannot through pain or distemper remember him or not with renewed Joy or Pleasure he will remember me and delight to do me good and to be my Salvation 8. And though the belief of the unseen World be the principle by which I conquer this yet are my conceptions of it lamentably dark A Soul in flesh which acteth as the form of a body is not furnished with such images helps or light by which it can have clear conceptions of the state and operations of separated Souls But I am known of God when my knowledge of him is dark and small And he knoweth whither it is that he will take me what my state and work shall be He that is preparing a place for me with himself is well acquainted with it and me All Souls are his and therefore all are known to him He that is now the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as being living with him while they are dead to us will receive my departing Soul to them and to himself to be with Christ which he hath instructed me to commend into his hands and to desire him to receive He that is now making us living Stones for the new Jerusalem and his heavenly temple doth know where every one of us shall be placed And his knowledge must now be my satisfaction and my peace Let unbelievers say How doth God know Psal 73.11 But shall I doubt whether he that made the Sun be Father of lights and whether he know his dwelling and his continued works Be still O my Soul and know that he is God Psal 40.10 and when he hath guided thee by his counsel he will take thee to Glory and in his Light thou shalt have Light And though now it appear not to sight but to Faith only what we shall be yet we known that we shall see him as he is and we shall appear with him in glory And to be KNOWN of God undoubtedly includeth his PRACTICAL LOVE which secureth our Salvation and all that tendeth thereunto It is not meant of such a knowledge only as he hath of all things or of such as he hath of the ungodly And why should it be hard to thee O my Soul to be perswaded of the love of God Is it strange that he should love thee who is Essential Infinite love Any more than that the Sun should shine upon thee which shineth upon all capable recipient objects though not upon the uncapable which through interposing things cannot receive it To believe that Satan or wicked men or deadly Enemies should love me is hard But to believe that the God of love doth love me should in reason be much easier than to believe that my Father or Mother or dearest friend in the World doth love me If I do not make and continue my self uncapable of his complacence by my wilful continued refusing of his grace it is not possible that I should be deprived of it Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me Psal 146.8 The Lord loveth the righteous John 16.27 2. Why should it be hard to thee to believe that he loveth thee who doth good so universally to the World and by his love doth preserve the whole Creation and give all Creatures all the good which they possess When his mercy is over all his works and his Goodness is equal to his wisdom and his power and all the World is beautified by it shall I not easily believe that it will extend to me The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Luk. 18.19 None is good essentially absolutely and transcendently but he alone Psal 33.5 The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 52.1 The goodness of God endureth continually He is good and doth good Psal 119.68 And shall I not expect good from so good a God the cause of all the good that is in the World 3. Why should I not believe that he will love me who so far loved the World yea his Enemies as to give his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 Having given me so precious a gift as his Son will he think any thing too good to give me Rom. 8.32 yea still he followeth his Enemies with his mercies not leaving himself without witness to them but filling their hearts with food and gladness and causing his Sun to shine on them and his Rain to fall on them and by his goodness leading them to repentance 4. Why should I not easily believe his love which he hath sealed by that certain gift of love the Spirit of Christ which he hath given The giving of the Holy Ghost is the shedding abroad of his love upon the heart Rom. 5. I had never known desired loved or served him sincerely but by that Spirit And will he deny his name his mark his seal his Pledge and Earnest of Eternal life Could I ever have truly loved Him his Word his Ways and Servants but by the reflection of his love shall I question whether he love those whom he hath caused to love him When our love is the surest gift and token of his love shall I think that I can love him more than he loveth me or be more willing to serve him than he is willing and ready to reward his Servants Heb. 11.6 1 Joh. 3.24 and 4.13 5. Shall I not easily hope for good from him who hath made such a covenant of Grace with me in Christ Who giveth me what his Son hath purchased who accepteth me in his most beloved as a member of his Son Who hath bid me ask and I shall have And hath made to Godliness the promise of this life and that to come and will with-hold no good thing from them that walk uprightly Will not such a Gospel such a Covenant such promises of love secure me that he loveth me while I consent unto his covenant terms 6. Shall I not easily believe
more accurate than any Logical Author doth prescribe And the Lords Prayer and Decalogue especially will prove this when truly opened And the Doctrine of of the Trinity and the Baptismal Covenant is the Foundation of all true method of Physicks and Morality in the World. What if a novice cannot Anatomize Cicero or Demosthenes doth it follow that they are immethodical Brand-miller and Flaccher upon the Scripture Text and Steph. Tzegedine Sohnius Gomarus Dudley Fenner and many others upon the Body of Theology have gone far in opening the Scripture Method But more may be yet done VI. Consider also that the Eternal Wisdom Word and Son of God our Redeemer is the Fountain and giver of all Knowledge Nature to be restored and Grace to restore it are in his hands He is that true Light that lighteneth every one that cometh into the World The Light of Nature and Arts and Sciences are from his Spirit and Teaching as well as the Gospel Whether Clemens Alexandrinus and some other Ancients were in the right or not when they taught that Philosophy is one way by which men come to Salvation it is certain that they are in the right that say it is now the gift of Christ And that as the Light which goeth before Sun-rising yea which in the night is reflected from the Moon is from the Sun as well as its more glorious Beams So the Knowledge of Socrates Plato Zeno Cicero Antonine Epictetus Seneca Plutarch were from the Wisdom and Word of God the Redeemer of the World even by a lower gift of his Spirit as well as the Gospel and higher illumination And shall Christ be thought void of what he giveth to so many in the World VII Lastly Let it be considered above all that the grand difference between the teaching of Christ and other men is that he teacheth effectively as God spake when he Created and as he said to Lazarus Arise He giveth wisdom by giving the Holy Ghost All other Teachers speak but to the Ears but he only speaketh to the Heart Were it not for this he would have no Church I should never have else believed in him my self nor would any other seriously and savingly Aristotle and Plato speak but words but Christ speaketh LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE in all Countreys through all Ages to this day This above all is his witness in the World. He will not do his work on Souls by ludicrous enticing words of the Pedantick wisdom of the World but by illuminating Minds and changing Hearts and Lives by his effectual operations on the Heart God used not more Rhetorick nor Logick than a Philosopher when he said only Let there be Light but he used more Power Indeed the first Chapter of Genesis though abused by Ignorants and Cabalists hath more true Philosophy in it than the presumptuous will understand as my worthy Friend Mr. Samuel Gott lately gone to God hath manifested in his excellent Philosophy excepting the style and some few presumptions But operations are the glorious Oratory of God and his wisdom shineth in his works and in things beseeming the Heavenly Majesty and not in childish Laces and Toys of Wit. Let us therefore cease quarrelling and learn wisdom of God instead of teaching and reprehending him Let us magnifie the mercy and wisdom of our Redeemer who hath brought Life and Immortality to light and certified us of the matters of the World above as beseemed a Messenger sent from God and hath taught us according to the matter and our capacity and not with trifling childish notions Chap. XVIII Inference VI. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain HAving opened to you our Disease it is easie were not the Disease it self against it to discern the Cure. Pretended knowledge hath corrupted and divided the Christian World. Therefore it must be CERTAIN VERITIES which must Restore us and Unite us And these must be Things PLAIN and NECESSARY and such as God hath designed to this very use or else they will never do the work One would think that it should be enough to satisfie men of this 1. To read Scripture 2. To peruse the terms of Concord in the Primitive Church 3. To peruse the sad Histories of the Churches Discord and Divisions and the Causes 4. To peruse the state of the World at this day and make use of Universal Experience 5. To know what a Christian is what Baptism is and what a Church is 6. To know what Man is and that they themselves and the Churches are but Men. But penal and sinful Infatuation hath many Ages been upon the minds of those in the Christian World who were most concerned in the Cure and our sin is our misery as I think to the damned it will be the chief part of their Hell. But this subject is so great and needful and that which the Wounds and Blood of the Christian World do cry for a skilful Cure of that I will not thrust it into this corner but design to write a Treatise of it by it self as a second part of this This Book is since Printed with some Alteration and called The true and Only way of the Concord of the Churches Chap. XIX Of the Causes of this Disease of Prefidence or Proud Pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. THE Cure of Prefidence and pretended knowledge could it be wrought would be the Cure of Souls Families Churches and Kingdoms But alas how low are our hopes yet that may be done on some which will not be done on all or most And to know the causes and oppugn them is the chief part of the Cure so far as it may be hoped for 1. The first and grand cause is the very Nature of ignorance it self which many ways disableth men from knowing that which should abate their groundless confidence For 1. An ignorant man knoweth but little parcels and scraps of things And all the rest is unknown to him Therefore he fixeth upon that little which he knoweth and having no knowledge of the rest he cannot regulate his narrow apprehensions by any conceptions of them And all things visible to us not light it self excepted which as seen by us is Fire incorporated in Air being Compounds the very Nature or Being of them is not known where any Constitutive part is unknown And in all Compounds each part hath such relation and usefulness to others that one part which seemeth known is it self but half known for want of the knowledge of others Such a kind of knowledge is theirs that knowing only what they see do take a Clock or Watch to be only the Index moving by the Hours being ignorant of all the causal parts within Or that know no more of a Tree or other Plant than the Magnitude Site Colour Odour c. Or that take a man to be only a Body without a Soul or the Body to be only the Skin and Parts discerned by the Eye in converse