Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	let_v	lord_n	show_v	6,710	5	5.2022	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89582	A sermon preached to the two Houses of Parliament, at their solemn meeting to praise God for his infinite mercy in the restoring of the said Houses of Parliament to their honor and freedome with so little effusion of blood: at the Abbey-Church in Westminster, Aug. 12. 1647. / By Stephen Marshall, B.D. Minister of Finchingfield in Essex.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1647 (1647)	Wing M779; Thomason E401_29; ESTC R201798	19,695	33

glory to God who hath vouchsafed this Mercy to us Since the Lord hath appeared thus mercifully given us such a pledge as he hath done let us all endeavour to improve this mercy What shall I render to the Lord is the constant question of a thankfull heart so is this also How shall I use this mercy aright We must study therfore how to improve this great deliverance For our help herein I humbly commend two Directions one in generall which concerns all of us the other more particular which properly concerns you the Honourable Lords and Gentlemen of the two Houses of Parliament For all of us Besides all those Uses which should be made of every deliverance which are to teach us to turn to God to beleeve in him to trust him for time to come to tell abroad his wonderfull works which he hath done Besides all these methinks this mercy doth hint to all Gods people that God is very willing they should study to bee reconciled one to another for truly Brethren if we had gone to War now whatever might have been the pretended cause the reall truth had bin Gods people had gone to destroy one another They that have fought together against their common Enemies who have pray'd together mourn'd together lov'd one another liv'd as brethren contributed borne burthens done all with one heart and one spirit now under the pretence of I know not what must have sheathed their swords in one anothers bowells And when they were so neare it and their Father would not permit them Is it not a voice from heaven Children you must be reconciled Doth it not speak to them as Moses to the two Israelites Sirs you are brethren doe not fall out one with another Do not wrong one another Had God for our sins left us under this judgement to help to destroy each other and then the remainder of us given up into the hands of other adversaries they would have taught us to be at peace one with another wee should have agreed in prisons or in banishment or in the shadow of death O that the Lord would fix it upon the hearts of all that feare him to make this collection from this great Mercy that the people of God must study to be reconciled and united together and to bear one with another every one to indeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace More especially my Lords and Gentlemen this dealing of God toward you seems to call for some notable duties at your hands Let me freely speak a few things unto you 1 That God hath oftentimes cast reproach upon you and humbled you heretofore but in this last abasement the Lord hath set such a stigma such a mark of scorne suffering you to bee spit in the face after that manner suffering the young to beare themselves insolently against the Ancient and the base against the Honorable that I cannot but say there was some high displeasure of God either to your persons or to the Kingdome whom you represent or both I doe therefore most humbly pray you that you would search your own hearts and enquire whether there be not some cause why our gracious God did thus abase you certainly a Father uses not to spit in the face of his Childe if there bee not some speciall cause for it And I cannot think that the Lord would ever have let such an ignominious act that carryes so much abomination in the face of it to bee offer'd to a Parliament if he would not thereby put them to search for somewhat for which they ought to lay themselves low in secret before him When Shimei did curse and revile David David presently reflected upon himself So-let him curse since God bids him curse David hee presently remembred how hee had dishonored God in the matter of Uriah and therefore looked at this reproach as righteously inflicted by the hand of God how culpable-soever Shimei was in it I commend it to your serious thoughts whether as men or Parliament-men or whether as Houses of Parliament the honour and glory of God have not been slighted by you and therefore the Lord hath suffered this slight and scorn to bee cast upon you enquire whether there bee not as much cause why the God of heaven let this reproach bee cast upon you as you have to appoint a Committee to enquire who they were that have done it I blame not your care in that but I humbly pray that you would be carefull of this As I would fain have you learn somewhat from the disgrace which God cast upon you So Principally I desire you to improve the deliverance that now God hath afforded he hath now vouchsafed in his mercy to bring you to sit in Parliament in safety that you may consult the welfare of this Kingdome my most humble suit unto your Lordships and you Noble Gentlemen is consider more seriously then ever heretofore what a task lies upon you you have a very sick Patient of the Kingdome of England to cure it is almost ready to give up the ghost at your doore and in your hand now for the Lords sake if ever any of you have before-time thought of any private interest of your own lay it a side and now attend wholly to the publick now God hath given you one opportunity more try whether possibly you can save the Kingdome or no and in your endeavours I commend onely these two Heads to your serious consideration First Know for certain you can never save this Land without God If the Lord will not work with you you can work nothing Except the Lord build the House they labour but in vaine who build it But if you will work for Gods interest the Lord will work with you and carry on your own interests so far as yours is good Now the Lords interest in the Kingdome is Religion his Worship his Truth his Saints his People let them have the deepest part of your care you will but set up a wall without morter Arena sine calse Sand without lime if you do not take God along with you preserve Gods Truth in the first place buy not Peace with the selling of the Truth of God 2 Look to Gods Worship let that be set up and preserved in purity and take all rubbish and filth from it 3 Let the Ministers be encouraged with countenance maintenance provide that every Flock may have a Shepheard and that they may be helped forward look to Universities those Schools of the Prophets out of which may be sent laborers into the Lords vineyard you have begun many good things in this kind but you have bin hindred by many intervening accidents and the work still hangs the Reformation still sticks in the birth now make it your great work be faithful in building Gods house God wil build your house but if you shall be slight in it know for certain you shal never be able

God had offered such a faire meanes to take him off from it There is another in the second of Samuel of a great Souldier and Generall Joab by name when hee was in the pursuit of one Sheba that had played the Rebell and Traytor against his King Joab had pursued him far and now had chac'd him into a Citie called Abell there besieged him and the Citie for his sake with a purpose to batter the Walls downe and to destroy all that were in the Citie as guilty of protecting this villaine very seasonably a wise woman over the wall calls to Joab and would know of him why hee would come to destroy a Citie of Israel and so to swallow up a part of the inheritance of the Lord now marke Joabs answer The Lord forbid saith he God forbid it is farre from mee that ever I should take any pleasure to devoure or swallow up there is no such matter there is one Sheba a Traytor against his King I pursue him onely deliver him up I am gone not a man dies amongst you You see a Souldier a man enur'd to blood abominates the thoughts of it further then necessitie compells to have his hand in the blood of any of Gods people This will yet bee clearer if you consider that the Lord himselfe lookes upon it as the saddest judgement that ever hee gives his people up to when hee suffers them to imbrew their hands in one anothers blood Take but one or two instances that in the 9. of Isaiah at the 19. verse Through the wrath of the Lord saith the Text the Land is darkned the wrath of God was like a furnace and the smoake of it filled all the Land and the people shall bee as fewell to this fire This was a terrible judgement which is expressed in such dreadfull tearmes darkenesse and devouring fire are horrid things nothing more intolerable then these two But what was this judgement or by what meanes should this fierce wrath of God bee executed marke the next words no man shall spare his brother they shall snatch on their right hand and bee hangry and snatch on their left hand and not bee satisfied they shall every man eate the flesh of his owne arme Ephraim against Manasseh and Manasseh against Ephraim and both of them together helpe to devoure Judah No man ever hated his owne flesh faith the Apostle but this people should bee so blinded and so given up to a reprobate sense that they should devoure and destroy their nearest friends and eate as it were the flesh of their owne armes If ever God give up a people to this that brethren thus come to engage in one anothers blood it is a token that the wrath of God burnes the hottest that it can burne against a Land Take one expression more it is in Jer. 13. 14. I will dash them one against another even the fathers and the sonnes together saith the Lord I will not pitty nor spare nor have mercy but destroy them a strange expression from a God of mercy whose delight is in mercy I will not pity shew no mercy kill kill kill but how shall this be executed why I will dash them one against another without any enemy from abroad there shall be no need to send for strangers the father shall destroy the children and children their fathers and a mans murderers shall be his neighbours or the men of his owne houshold You may by these plainly discerne that God accounts it the terriblest of all judgements to give his people up to destroy each other and therefore it must be acknowledged a great mercy to have it prevented To this I might adde that in Gods book those men that are the occasions of peoples ruining one another are accounted the most ahominable and they that endeavour to prevent it are counted the blessedest men that live this is one of the things that Gods soule hates Even that man that sowes dissention amongst brethren boutifews and kindle-fires are an abhomination to him and he will scatter the people who delight in warre he will destroy the Blood-thirsty man the Peace-makers that labour to compose and comprize differences to keep people from it are blessed Blessed are these Peace-makers they shall truly he called the children of God But to open this truth more fully give me leave to cleare these three things First That Blood-shed warre is a terrible judgement wherever it is fall it out among whom it will Secondly That it is yet a greater judgement when Brethren come to devoure and destroy one another brethren of one Nation Civill warres is a greater judgment then war with Strangers Thirdly and above all The greatest of all judgements is when Gods people who are brethren in the profession of his true Religion come to imbrew their hands one in anothers blood these things opened it will certainly be concluded that Gods mercy in preventing this is most worthy to be acknowledged For the first That to have a people given up to warre and blood and spoile is a great plague You all know in the Scripture it is counted one of Gods sorest judgements Ezek. 14. 21. When I send my foure sore judgements upon Jerusalem the Sword and the Famine and the noy some Beast and the Pestilence to cut off man and beast the Sword is the first and chiefe of Gods sore judgements It is granted that sometimes war is lawfull and necessary and indeed never lawful but when necessary when as the saying is Pax populi patriaeque salus gloria regni when publique Safetie Libertie and Religion have no other way to preserve them under heaven but the Sword the Sword is then lawfull and then necessary but however war may sometimes be lawfull it is alwaies a great judgment at least to the one part if not to both It is the Idea of all miseries that can befall a Countrey nothing thrives where this Woolfe sets his foot and hee that would have a Land-skip of it that would have a representation of war let him but conceive the burning of houses confused noise garments rowled in blood ravishing of women and virgins and dashing of Infants against the stones destroy of trade spoyle of wealth blood and wrath and fury marching every where a Countrey like the land of Eden before the face of man and nothing but a desolate Wildernesse when once it have walked over it a Land sowne with the seed of man and beast fruitfull and flourishing suddenly made an Aceldama a Golgatha a Field of blood or a place of Sculs this is warre in a word if a man would in one short sentence describe a Country to bee most miserable hee need say no more but hic fuit hostilitas Warre hath raged and raigned in this place our selves alas for these yeeres past have had so much experience of it that our women and children are able now to bee Rhetoricians in setting forth the miseries of warre

for which God in his righteous judgement gives the Sword a commission to come and devour flesh and to drink blood such as are the fins of Idolatry and superstition Judg. 5. 8. Contempt of the Word and Ordinances and Ministery Mat. 21. 35. neglecting the day of Grace Luk. 19. 42. unprofitablenesse under the meanes of grace and Salvation Esa. 5. 4. living in sins of blood Ezek. 35. 6. Carnall security laying nothing to heart Jer. 5. 12. abuse of Peace and Plenty Deut. 28. 47. trusting in an Arm of flesh 2 Chron. 16. 9. Sabbath breaking 2 Chron. 36. 21. Pride in apparell Esay 3. 16 25. want of Compassion to them who live and lye under the misery of war Amos 6. 67. For these sins and such as these are God hath threatened to send a Sword to avenge himself upon the doers of these things and upon the Nations where these live unpunished and therefore let all such who dare walke in any of these wayes know that however they may goe for good Patriots amongst men when they happen to take the right side in these Publick quarrels yet before God they will one day bee found guilty of the rapine and blood and spoile and plunder and all the miseries that War hath brought upon us and if they repent not of it let them be assur'd it will one day lye at their door and they must answer for it Secondly It speakes more terribly against those that are the Physicall causes of it that directly and properly doe endeavour to widen differences to divide between King and Parliament between Parliament and City between City and Army that they may by all meanes keep our wounds open and all this for their owne private ends and interests These indeed are cursed men whereas good men would be willing to die for their Countrey a generation of men are found amongst us that are willing their Countrey should perish for them or perish with them who are willing to have the lives and blood of poore Innocents sacrificed to their lusts as if the people for whom Jesus Christ thought not his owne blood too precious for their redemption were no more worth then to perish like brut Beasts for their cursed and carnall ends who like the Priests of Mars scatter curses and firebrands betwixt Army and Army to provoke and raise their fury who to their utmost labour that animofities and divisions blood and contests bee kept on foot These Politicians use to take in the differences of Religion which are found among Gods people and weave them into their own designes and pretend to stand for Religion and joyne with this and that party for Religion-sake and thereby ingage the consciences of such as feare God when in the meane time Religion is no part of their care but onely seek to make use of godly men for their own ends and interests God will finde them out and reckon with them in his own time I 'll say no more to them now but as old Jacob said of his two sons Cursed bee their rage the instruments of cruelty are in their hands my glory be not thou associated with them into their lot let my soule never come And let us al pray that when God comes to cal all men to an accompt none of us be ever found among the people that delight in War And as these are cursed so truly there is a third sort are not to bee excused this day I meane Whoever they are who in stead of rejoycing and enlarging their hearts to blesse God for this his late mercy shewed in preventing the misery and ruine that was comming upon us have their hearts even grieved and cannot looke upon the worke of this day as that which deserveth praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God I would not willingly passe a rash sentence upon any I know jealousies and misapprehensions have been many on both sides and Gods administrations have been so dark that the Consciences of many godly men have not been clearly satisfied in the carriage of things but however methinks any man that could look upon the Lords dealing with a single eye must needs say it was an infinite mercy That God should thus unexpectedly turn away that torrent of Blood that was comming in upon us For I beseech you for what end should it have been what good could ever have come of it to say nothing of the misery of them that would have had the worst of it I am certain who ever had been the Conquerors must have taken up the lamentation of the ten Tribes when they had almost destroyed the Tribe of Benjamin in the 21. of Judges And in stead of keeping a day of Thanksgiving must have kept a day of mourning and said Alas alas O Lord God of Israel why is it come to passe this day that there should bee one Tribe lacking in Israel Alas Lord why is it come to passe that either the Parliament is destroyed or alas Lord why is it come to passe that the goodly Citie is destroyed or alas Lord why is it come to passe that the Army that hath done so worthily is destroyed certainly who ever had had the best lamentation and woe would have been written upon every honest heart and therefore why all our soules should not bee enlarged to praise God for it joyne with those who have their hearts inlarged I know not Nulla salus bello our fighting could have produced nothing but ruine The second and maine use I intended is To helpe you this day to give that glory and praise to God which the mercy of this day calls for at all our hands God hath in all our publique troubles watched over us and appeared in the mount of all our difficulties and hath hitherto alwayes found out wayes when we could find none and alwayes come in with seasonable deliverances blessed bee his name for it but to my poore thoughts never did the Lord give a more seasonable deliverance and appeare more mercifully to keep us from utter ruine then in that mercy which wee meet this day to celebrate and I thinke you will judge so if with me you consider these foure things that meet in it First The sad occasion of our danger Secondly The persons some of them through mis-information who were ingaged in the preparation to this new warre Thirdly The propinquitie the neare approach of utterruine by it And fourthly The consequents of it First The occasion of it the Originall was that most horred and abominable rape and violence offered unto the two Houses of Parliament wherein the most loath some filth and durt was throwne in the faces of our Nobles and our Senators that I thinke was ever found in any Nation confident I am the like was never done in England so great a blot and stain cast upon the Parliament as I may truely say is tantum non irreparable when a rude multitude shall by violence