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	soul_n	14,434	5	5.5092	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93340	A sermon preached before the right worshipful the Deputy-Governour, and the Company of Merchants trading to the Levant-seas, at St Bartholemew-Exchange, May 1. 1689 By Edward Smyth, A.M. Fellow of Trinity-Colledge near Dublin; and preacher to the factory at Smyrna. Imprimatur, May 28. 1689. Hen. Wharton, R.R. in Christo P. ac D.D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. à sacris domest.	Smyth, Edward, 1665-1720.	1689 (1689)	Wing S4023; ESTC R230296	14,850	40

God with the Songs and Triumphs of our Deliverance we must write our Deliverance not on Tables of Stone but on the fleshly Tables of our Heart The Righteous shall be glad in the Lord. When he sees his Glory so conspicuously advanced and his holy Perfections so illustriously shining through his Judgments this signal conviction of Infidelity this confusion of Prophaneness how does it confirm his Faith and cherish his Hope The just shall rejoyce and all iniquity shall stop her mouth How exceeding the Comfort How triumphant is the Joy when we receive so clear Pledges of God's Love and Favour to us express'd in his most tender Care over us in protecting us from most imminent Dangers and contriving our deliverance from such terrible Judgments for were we not saved even as by Fire and as Fire-brands pluckt out of the burning Let us then ever magnifie O Lord thy infinite Mercy 's the only cause of our deliverance for this was our Sanctuary and Refuge it was not our own Skill and Counsel not our Strength and Industry that saved us but thou art our mighty Deliverer A Second Duty incumbent on us is often to meditate on past Judgments We must not barely remember them for this is no Vertue but we must remember them with those very passions of mind those ardent thoughts affections and resentments we had when we suffered under them and they were so visible before us what indignation and resolution we then expressed against sin what submissions were then wrought in us to his Almighty pleasure and with what mortification and self-denyal we resigned our selves And this is remembring in Scripture phrase by which we may secure to our selves all the advantages of past afflictions without the sting and misery which attends them by setting them in a clear light before us and making them present to us by a lively remembrance so that they may be a constant bugbear to us against Vice. Let not those ardors of Devotion expire those struglings of the Spirit cease which burnt them so bright if our Petitions kept equal pace with our Pain let them do so with the remembrance of it now Our Meditations on past Judgments ought also to beget in us a well grounded hope and strong confidence The Lord hath delivered me therefore he will deliver I have often experimented his Mercy therefore I will now fly to it If we have strengthened our Prayers in the day of our Calamity by any extraordinary Vow or Sacred Promises according to the pious Examples of Holy Men we are now carefully to perform them and to release that strict Obligation we have put our Souls under And there are many other Religious Duties of the same nature for there are scarce any which it does not confirm and encrease which the remembrance of past Judgments strongly recommend to our practise Nothing can more effectually secure to us all the advantages and fruits of the Spirit But not having time now to enlarge on them I must refer them to your own application Only let me beg your attention whilst in a few words I remind you of that late signal Judgment and deplorable Calamity in which this Honourable Audience was deeply wounded The late Judgment which befel Smyrna that complicated Calamity of an Earthquake most terrible in all its circumstances succeeded by a Fire too pregnant an instance of the Divine Vengeance cannot if barely related but fill the most hardned Heart with pity and astonishment but on you surely whose misfortune it was to be too much concerned in it who were so great Sufferers in the Desolation it wrought it ought it must make a more deep and lasting impression The Lord surely was in the Earthquake and in the Whirlwind the suddenness of the Destruction even exceeding thought and all the dismal circumstances attending this Accident are too strong an evidence that the destroying Angel came from Heaven and that the Almighty put on Vengeance to the overthrow of that miserable City For behold the trembling Earth sinking to her Center with the stroaks of God's Anger legible in her face behold a great and opulent City famous in ancient and sacred Annals and even then restored to her former Grandeur surpassing in Trade and equal in many other advantages to any of her Sisters in the East reduced to ruin in a moment The same instant saw her a most flourishing City and an heap of Rubbish And that nothing of her Beauty or Greatness might be legible in her Fall a consuming Fire devours her very Bowels what escaped the Earthquake becomes a prey to the Fire So heavy was the Hand of Heaven that it pursues her to the very Grave buries her very Ruins and razes her Foundation O the consternation of her living and confusion of her perishing Inhabitants O the sighs and tears frights and amazements O the deaths and many were deny'd even this mercy O the half Deaths Heads and Hearts miserably surviving the other Members of Men Women and Children lamenting yet unable to help themselves and one another The Mother just lived to see her Daughter die and the same Ruin involved the whole Family Such had I courage and were I sufficiently informed to proceed in the description you may imagine the lamentable Condition of Smyrna was And was this done upon the earth and the Lord hath not done it How swift O Lord is destruction when thou dost give it Commission Even the dull Earth shall become a swift Executioner of Divine Vengeance One Instant can and did overturn the Toil the Improvement of an Age. Such is the folly and guilt of our sins that against a City so advantaged so cultivated so blessed they can extort the heaviest Vengeance even from that hand whence all her Blessings derived It was from their fatal influence that she is now forced to succeed in the Fate and Ruine as in the Wealth and Splendour of her Neighbours that she is now become like unto Sodom and Gomorrah Were that City able to speak out of its Ruins how Eloquent would she be on that Subject of her Sufferings what heavy Complaints would she make against those Sins which have been the certain and fatal Instruments of her destruction Let her Breaches then let her Ruins and Desolation speak behold the genuine Off-spring of Vice the fruit of those things of which we ought to be ashamed And surely we cannot look on her Ruins but we must repent we cannot see her miseries without bewailing our own sins And let us not here flatter our selves or run into that dangerous mistake that the Infidelity of the Jew and Mahometan that the Idolatry and Superstition of Popery are the only provocations which brought down this heavy Judgment Our sins alas are but too much the ingredients and its wounds and scars yet bleeding afresh are but too strong an intimation that we are still in our sins To conclude all then You have heard how Eloquent the Judgments of the Lord are to perswade Repentance and inforce all the Duties of Religion how they recommend Vertue from the strongest Topicks of worldly Interest and Pleasure as the surest means to preserve both How they represent to us most sensibly the destructive nature of Sin that all the Misery and Unhappiness which befals Mankind flow certainly from this Fountain This being then our case common prudence the obvious consideration of our own advantage must direct us to that Duty which Christianity commands Sin and Folly will be found but two Names for the same thing Let us therefore apply our selves to the study of true Wisdom Let us make the true advances in Grace and Vertue And now the Judgments of the Lord are upon the Earth Let us learn let us practise Righteousness for Godliness we see is the true Gain it has the Blessings of this World and that which is to come To which place of everlasting Happiness Almighty God of his infinite Mercy bring us all Amen FINIS ERRATA PAge 5. last line after view a Full Stop. p. 11. l. 24. judicate r. indicate p. 12. l. 17. loves r. Lords p. 16. l. 14. would r. should p. 23. l. 23. bugbear'd r. bribed l. 22. commands r. commanded p. 24. l. 13. Treasure r Treasures l. 15. him r. them p. 29. l. 17. do r. does

bewitching World then to fix my Happiness any longer here I will hereafter lay up my Treasure in Heaven I will be no longer cheated with imaginary good but will make provision for the true and everlasting happiness Let these then be our reflections and we shall rise with greater Glory our inward Beauty will outshine whatever we could boast of outward splendor We shall come out purified from the Fire of Afflictions with our Souls possessed of the only valuable Riches of Grace and Vertue Our proper demeanour then and the use we are to make of the Divine Judgments the most signal expressions of Almighty God's displeasure is what the Prophet in my Text draws from them To learn Righteousness to be instructed in the Ways of Vertue and in all the Duties of Religion And is not this the Moral and Natural Consequence of the Divine Judgments which represent Sin in its proper Colours attended with horrour and amazement dread and confusion of face And when we see Vice thus sinking into Hell how much must we be enamoured with the Comliness the Divine Pleasure the Heaven of Vertue which the wretched Sinner only admires to aggravate his misery Can any thing more effectually recommend Humility than the exemplary downfal of Pride when a Firebrand from Heaven levels us with the Dust and forces the vain Bubble to an humble acknowledgment of his true Original where the Worm is our Sister and a much happier Creature When we see Luxury and Intemperance chastised by some signal Calamity by the Desolation of a Plague by an Earthquake by a Fire from Heaven How effectually must this press upon our Consideration the contrary and proper Vertues of Sobriety and Temperance All that deceitful pleasure and advantage with which sin has so long imposed on us appears now in its Native Deformity with its true Off-spring Vengeance and Judgment With what zeal and ardency must we fly to the Breast-plate of Faith when all our imaginary Security shall betray us when neither Palaces nor Bulwarks can defend us and the Earth finking under the load of our Iniquities cannot afford us footing Shall not the Hypocrite then unfold his Soul when he sees that all his pretensions to Religion make him only the more obnoxious to Vengeance and that his Rags and Nakedness are now most apparent Is there any thing then which makes us more effectually bow to the Precepts of Religion then the Terrours of the Lord then his wonderful his dreadful Judgments Whence do we proceed better Proficients then from the School of Calamities A storm will inspire Devotion even into that thoughtless Wretch who in his Security and Debauchery reviled every thing that was serious who scorned to damp his Mirth with the melancholy thoughts of Religion and the sad countenance of Sobriety Who knew no such thing as the Pleasures of the Mind and would not value whether he had any rational Faculties unless it were for the contrivance of Oaths and making new Discoveries in the ways of wickedness who was as great a Monster in Morality as ever there was in Nature How suppliant a Convert has a storm made him how has an Earthquake reformed him When the Angel of Vengeance is at hand ready to smite the Covetous and Oppressor how does this melt him into love and kindness into charity and good works is he not ready to cloath the naked whom he even now spoiled and to relieve that poor man whose Face he had now been grinding Had most sins no other punishment then there necessary and natural consequents were there no other scourge for Luxury and Intemperance but decay of Estate a Crased Body and that they sow the Seeds of all Distempers this would be Amulet against them to a considering Man. But when a flaming Sword a Plague and Famine and infinite other Instruments of a most terrible Vengeance do certainly attend them O stupified Man O monstrous Security If this will not awaken you and force you to Repentance When your Cities lie in Ruines mourning in Dust and Ashes because you neglected this Duty when your Country welters in Blood and even the Stones cry out against you to melt your more hardened Heart You cannot behold such Desolation without making this reflection 'T is our sins surely which have made us thus liable to the Divine Vengeance had we any reason to expect his Protection we might sit quiet thô the World be overturned this was the Hedge about Job which till withdrawn bafled all the Attempts of Satan But alas our sins have put a Bar to this Claim we have forfeited God's Protection and our reliance is now but presumption And can any thing more effectually press upon us Vertue and Religion than such Considerations And truly few Men are so hardned as not to be struck with an awful Reverence to be forced into some Fit of Religion when they labour under some eminent Judgment For Vengeance carries with it such a convincing force that few are able to resist it Even the Atheist cries to Heaven when Death in the dreadful shape of a Judgment to him surely most terrible do seize him Thunder forces Caligula to seek for shelter even the hardned Pharaoh relents when the Almighty issues forth his Instruments of Vengeance when the Strength of Egypt is overpowred by a Locust how does it extort from him the ungrateful confession of his own weakness and forces him to fly to the Intercession of Moses But then alas we are all Pharaohs too in our shameful Ingratitude the Religious temper seldom out-lives our Deliverance those convictions and reflections usually wear off as the Judgment intermits When the Scene is shifted and the succeeding Light has dispelled the Cloud we then unbend the Bow let our severer thoughts disband and return to our former Security But this surely as 't is the greatest Abuse of the Divine Mercy in our Deliverance so must it pull down an heavier Judgment upon us 'T is our duty then to treasure up the serious memory of all our past Sufferings and so to perpetuate the effects of them that we may come out the purer from the Furnace and not like the New Moon return with the same Spots not to imbibe again those stains of sin which have already rendred us so obnoxious to Divine Vengeance And was it not for this reason that the Christian Church in all Ages has thought fit to Consecrate certain Days of Humiliation as sure and perpetual Remembrancers of the Divine Judgments and her frequent Deliverances least by a shameful Ingratitude she should trample on and bury the Mercies of God in Oblivion But methinks common Prudence should direct us to this Practice to beware of that Rod under which we have smarted and to forsake those sins which have so often exposed us to Death and Destruction Many therefore are the Duties to which our Deliverance from past Calamities and the consideration of Judgments we have escaped do oblige us First we must ever glorifie Almighty