Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	mercy_n	miserable_a	sinner_n	4,432	5	10.3104	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26982	Richard Baxter's penitent confession and his necessary vindication in answer to a book called The second part of the mischiefs of separation, written by an unnamed author with a preface to Mr. Cantianus D. Minimis, in answer to his letter which extorted this publication.; Penitent confession and his necessary vindication in answer to a book called The second part of the mischiefs of separation. 1691	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Minimis, Cantianus D.	1691 (1691)	Wing B1341; ESTC R13470	98,267	107

pleasure is past that I mean 2. Nor a bare wish that it had not been done 3. Nor every slight Resolution to do so no more which time or temptation will soon wear off 4. Nor the actual forsaking of this or that particular sin 5. And yet it is not so high a degree as a perfection in sorrowing hating or forsaking sin But it is such a self-humbling and self-loathing sense of the inward badness of our Souls original and further contracted privative and postive and of the sinfulness of our Lives by Omissions and Actions against God our selves and others as proceedeth from a rooted Belief of Gods Law and Gospel which Christ by his Holy Spirit maketh effectual to turn the Soul to the Predominant Love and Choice of God as our God and Christ as our Saviour and the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifier and of Heavenly Perfection as our highest End and Hope and the revealed will of God as our Rule holy Obedience as our Practice and the Communion of Saints as our desired Society with so prevalent a hatred and enmity to sin that it reigneth not in us nor live we in any that is inconsistent with the sald predominant Love of God and Goodness This is the Repentance which I here treat of though lower degrees that bring Men but to a common Humiliation Confession and Amendment be better than none and may tend to prevent some Judgments of God and prepare Men for better § 2. There is great Reason that without Repentance we should not expect Deliverance and Salvation For 1. Without Repentance we continue in the sin that we should repent of We have the same sinning Mind and Will and Affections which we had in the acting of the sin and therefore are under the same criminal Guilt What should else fit us for Deliverance and Salvation more than any wicked Men He that Repenteth not would do the same again and a ain if he had the same Temptations The Man is not changed He may as wisely expect to be saved by the change of the Weather or the restraint of a Prison or a Watchman or by his decay of Age or by want of Money or by pain and sickness all which may restrain him from some sins as by an impenitent unchanged heart And God hateth all the workers of Iniquity § 3. 2. Repentance is much of the Essential Cure of a depraved sinful Soul And to be saved without Repentance is to be Cured and not Cured To be well without health To be saved and not saved § 4. 3. To be saved without Repentance is to Reconcile the most Holy God not to the Sinner but to the Sin Light to Darkness Christ and Belial Contrary to the Divine perfection and the Glory of his Holiness § 5. 4. And it is a denying or reproach to the Wisdom and Justice of his Government What worse can be said of the most unrighteous Kings and Judges than that they equal not only the just and the unjust the good and bad but even the penitent and the obstinately impenitent And what an odious state is such a governed Kingdom in § 6. 5. It is clean contrary to the design of Mans Redemption and the Office Undertaking and Honour of our Redeemer He came to destroy the works of the Devil and to save his people from their sins And how are they saved from them that are not Converted from them § 7. 6. How reasonable a condition is this to make a miserable sinner free from all his guilt or danger of destructive punishment without any purchase price or compensation of his own by the meer Merits and Love and Bounty of a Saviour and a merciful God and this after long and aggravated sinning as soon as ever he is but converted by Faith and true Repentance What would you think of such terms of pardon offered by Man in his lesser injuries If one abuse you rob you slander you and you tell him do but repent and give over and I will forgive thee because an Intercessor hath purchased thy forgiveness would you think him fit for pardon that refused such an offer Can you for shame say to God I will not repent and amend but yet forgive me It is an absurd errour of the Libertines that take Repentance in order to forgiveness to be a Legal burden and the preaching of it to be no Gospel preaching What Law is it but the Gospel or Law of Grace that giveth pardon on such gentle terms The first Law of Innocency gave no forgiveness The Law of Moses as Political gave temporal pardon but only for some lesser sins and on costly burdensome terms The Law of Grace made to lapsed Man Adam Noe Abraham and fully by Christ incarnate is it that calleth for Faith and Repentance as the condition of Everlasting Pardon and Life Christ is a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance and Remission of Sins § 8. 7. What would it do but equal Devils and Men to save the Impenitent And even feign God to allow his rational Creatures to live in a professed VVar against himself his Son and Spirit his Word and Promises and Mercies and against themselves and one another He that professeth impenitency for belying or wronging me bids me look to my self for he will do it again if he have opportunity and provocation § 9. 8. How contrary is it to Thankfulness and Ingenuity to wish to be spared in Impenitency after the purchase and tenders of so great Mercy What! Dare you ask leave to sin again and again when the pardon of every sin is the pardon of the punishment in Hell Fire § 10. How unmeet then are they for Pardon and Salvation that hate Conviction and Reproof and Rail at him as a Railer at them that doth but call them to Repentance That think he heinously injureth them that sheweth them by the clearest light of Evidence that they need Repentance What is Repentance but the actual healing of a sinful Soul The returning Prodigal when he repenteth cometh to himself and then cometh home to his Father He that was lost is then found and he that was dead is made alive And is he meet for a Physicians help that would not be cured but hateth health Is this a reasonable and thankful requital for all the wonders of Love and Mercy manifested to lost and miserable Sinners in the great work of Mans Redemption Shall we put Christ to be our Accuser and to say I came from Heaven and condescended to deepest Humiliation to heal these Sinners and they would not be healed Without their consent I was Incarnate Obeyed Suffered Died and Conquered Death by my Resurrection Before they desired it I gave them the Gospel and the offers of Free Grace and sent them Messengers to beseech them to be reconciled to God But it was not meet that I should be Theirs that would not be Mine and save them that would not consent to be saved To make them willing which is a

more Good or Evil to the Professors of the Christian Religion for this is generally said by many of your Friends concerning your Writings Ubi benè nemo melius ubi malè nemo pejus And for your Enemies they are generally so prejudiced with your Malè that they are not able to read or think or speak well of your Benè but discourage many good Souls from reading or minding your most profitable Discourses Now my humble suit to you is to consider whether as St. Augustine that great Light and voluminous Writer Crowned all his Works with his Retractations of what was amiss Mr. Baxter might not do the same to Gods Glory the establishing of good Christians in the Truth bringing the misled out of their Errors stopping the Mouths of your Enemies and causing your Person and good Works to be had in Everlasting Remembrance and the preventing the ill consequences of what has been acted and writ by you which may attend the Church of God for many Ages after your death Sir I doubt not but you have heard and read the dreadful things that you are charged withal I have been amazed at them and heartily sorry for them I beseech you consult some Religious Wise Faithful Person whom you know to be a true Son of the Church of England as no doubt there are some among so many learned Bishops and Pastors and desire them freely to deal with you in helping you to see the great Errata's of your Sarcastical Writings against the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England or take but that one Book call'd The Unreasonableness of Separation the Second Part c. with special Remarks on the Life and Actions of Mr. R. Baxter 1681. and let God and Men see that you cannot only write well of Humility Repentance and Self-denial but you can act them also Where a Cross in time of Plagues is upon the Door every Man that passes by is ready to pray Lord have mercy on that Family Sir if you with your own Hand would please to acknowledge which of your Works is Infectious and may hurt Souls all Men that read it would bless God for you and heartily send up their Prayers to Heaven if they be but Persons that ever frequent the Throne of Grace with a Domine Miserere R. B. wherefore I beseech you think of the advice of a mean Brother of yours in the Work of the Ministry who in real gratitude for the benefit he has received by your Works and for your own Comfort Honour and Happiness and Gods Glory above all presumes before he goes to his Grave to express his Love and Duty to you before you go to yours for he finds that you and we both entred into the Church of Christ March 12. 1614 and therefore cannot be long from appearing before Almighty God to receive a Sentence to an Eternal state Liberavi animam meam Deus Omnipotens dirigat Te in omnibus viis tuis Many years past I met with an Expression in a Preface to another Mans Writing with your Name to it which much troubled me that it should fall from that Pen which had writ such Excellent Helps to follow Christ Jesus his Rules and Example It was this You was speaking of Hell and the Government and Order among Devils and clapt in that common Pulpit-prayer Expression concerning the Ministry of the Church of England viz. By what Names or Titles soever Dignified or Distinguished which I thought one of the bitterest unchristian Reflections I ever read and I was heartily troubled to read it because I thought it impossible for Hell to have crouded it in where there was so much of Heaven Sir You have the best Prayers I can put up to God for you and humbly beg your Prayers that I may follow Paul's advice to Timothy in taking heed to my Self and Doctrine and continue therein that thorough Gods Mercy and Christs Merits my own Soul may be saved and theirs that hear me So I hope we shall meet in Heaven for we have an Advocate with the Father Feb. 169● Cantianus D Minimis THE PREFACE TO Mr. Cantianus D Minimis Salutem SIR § 1. I unfeignedly thank you for your Invitation to Repentance O pray for me that neither Ignorance nor Prepossession and Prejudice keep me in Impenitency so near my Death I daily wait for my last day on Earth and it is dreadful to die in the guilt of Impenitence But who knoweth all his secret faults I hope God will accept my willingness to know them and openly to confess them what Party or Person soever be displeased with it Upon your Letter I began to practise it and finding the Book which you refer me to begin with my Childhood and Youth in his Accusations I thought my Answer must follow him and begin there also But shewing it to a Friend more prudent than my self he disliked it that I should tell the World of my Childish sins when it is Schism and Rebellion that are my Charge by the Accuser And I have oft heard bis pueri senes as if such passages were the effects of aged weakness which better remembereth the passages of Youth than of later years I suspect that this is true And yet a dying Man is afraid of such prudence as would stifle penitent Confession when I am so loudly called to it by you and the Accuser I will therefore satisfie Him and You and such other and my Conscience though I bear the derision of prudent dislikers It wrongeth no Man and to be accounted weak and simple I can easily bear § 2. But I doubt it is confessing too little and not too much that you will blame me for And I cannot remedy that neither Your Liturgy denieth Christian Burial to all that kill themselves and it is no Virtue to belie our selves I am sure it is sin to belie a Neighbour whom I must love but as my self Yea or not seasonably to vindicate his Reputation against malignant Slanderers I have many years left the Book unanswered to which you refer me for the Confession of my sins though many told me it was my Duty to answer it It is you now that have call'd me to it Would you have me confess all that he falsly accuseth me of Then you would make your self guilty of all his Lies by presuming that they are true and judging before you ever heard the defence of the accused You write too honestly to allow me to judge so hardly of you But truely I durst not put by your Call to my necessary defence The chief reason is that as you doubt whether my Books will do more good or hurt and your Author thinks it would be good that They were all burnt and the Papists are of the same mind so I am fully perswaded is the Devil And till he can get the Conquering Papists or Tories to do it he will Endeavour to make them as useless as if they were burnt by rendering them odious for their own

Moral change I used most undeniable Reasons and Means as Moral Causes I set Heaven before them in my Promises and Hell in Threatnings I convinced them of the Evil of Sin and of the Misery of unconverted Sinners and of the Vanity of all that can be set against the Mercies and Hopes which I set before them and of all other Remedies without my Grace And yet unless I would by Omnipotency heal them they would not be healed However God use the way of unresistible Omnipotency on some and will not be frustrate in his Design of the Saving of his Elect nor leave the Event of his Grace to the uncertain Determination of the Will of Man yet those will be found unexcuseable that wilfully go on and perish after all the sapiential moral Methods Reasons Perswasions Mercies and Patience warning and Corrections that were used as tending to their Cure Chap. II. Sect. 1. The Author's Profession of his own Repentance § 1. HE is unfit to profess himself to be called of God to call others to Repentance who is Impenitent himself And what Man hath a louder Call to Repent from God and Man than I my Self And should I not be truly willing to know my Sin that I may Repent of it and to confess it bewail it and forsake it when I know it Conscience would tell me that hereby I should aggravate it beyond all just excuse Alas it hath not been so sweet so profitable or friendly to me that I should take its part or be loth to leave it It hath been worse to me every day of my Life than all the Enemies that ever I had in the World And since God taught me effectually to know what Sin is and what God and Christ and Grace and the Hope of Heaven is and to know my Self all the Sufferings that ever I have had from Men from Malice from Envy from Persecutors from Slanderers have been next to nothing to me in comparison of what in Soul and Body I suffer daily for and by my Self and Sin § 2. Therefore I humbly and earnestly beg of that God that is the Hater of Sin and the Father of Lights that he will not deny me that illuminating convincing Grace which is needful to make me know the truth of my own Condition nor that uprightness and tenderness of Heart which is necessary to my true Humiliation and that I may not forbear any true Confession which is necessary to my exercise of Repentance and to my Forgiveness It is no time for me to deny or extenuate my Sin when I am waiting daily in pain and languishing for my final Doom at my approaching Change when I shall quit this transitory World and all its Vanities for ever If I knew nothing of dangerous and doubtful Consequence by my Self yet am I not thereby justified And how small a matter should it be to me to be judged and acquit or praised by Men when there is one that Judgeth me by the final Sentence even the Lord. The false applause and praise of Men the miserable Hypocrites reward addeth no Joy to those in Heaven nor abateth the Misery of those in Hell Whether they praise or dispraise me they are all Dying as well as I and in that day their thoughts perish And who that seeth a Skull cast up doth much care what that Man thought of him while he was alive Verily every Man at his best Estate is altogether Vanity Cease therefore O my Soul from Man § 3. But what Must I or may I therefore Repent of all that men of divers Minds call me to Repent of How impossible is that How foolish and how wicked There are above Sixty Books written against me in part or in the main scope And I have written above a Hundred and twenty which must needs make work for many mens censure And are all or most Wise and Judicious that read and censure them I. The Sadduces censure me for asserting the Life to come and the Resurrection II. The Somatists censure me for the asserting of the Difference of Spirits from Bodies III. The Antitrinitarians censure me for shewing what Evidence of Trinity in Unity God hath imprinted on the whole frame of Nature and Morality IV. The Church-distracting Hereticators censure me for taking the old Controversies with the Nestorians Eutychians and Monothelites to be capable of easier reconciliation and gentler handling than it hath found by such fierce Dividers V. The Arrians and Socinians say I judge too hardly of them that deny the Godhead of Christ VI. The Arminians censure me for holding special Election and Differencing Grace VII The hot Anti-Arminians censure me for holding any such free Will and Universal Redemption as Usher Davenant Preston and such other knowing men have defended VIII The Anabaptists call me to Repentance for Writing so much for Infants Baptism IX The Antinomians deeply censure me as being against Christ and free Grace and ascribing too much to Man to Faith to Work and our own Righteousness and for detecting their Errours X. The Separatists call me to Repentance for separating no further from the Conformists than they force us from them and separate themselves from necessary Truth And for perswading men to Communion with the Parish Assemblies XI The Conforming Separatists call me to Repentance for not separating from all save themselves and for knowing and owning those to be true Members of the Church of England and faithful Servants of Christ whom they eject XII Clement Writer and the Seekers censure me for asserting the certainty of Scripture Verity as sealed by the Spirit by Miracles and Sanctification and for maintaining that there is yet continued a true Ministry and true Churches XIII Mr. Liford and some others censure me for taking the Blasphemy of the Holy Ghost to be fixed Infidels judging Christs Miracles to be by the Devil XIV Mr. Henry Dodwell censureth me for not taking the Office of Presbyters to be specified or measured and varied by the Will of the Bishop or Ordainer and not determined by the Institution of Christ and for not denying the Presbyters and Bishops of all the Reformed Churches to be really Ministers and their Churches true Churches who have not an uninterrupted Succession of Canonical Ordination by Diocesans as from the days of the Apostles and that they commit not the Sin against the Holy Ghost by administring Sacraments as being but Lay-Men while he holdeth such as the French to be true Ministers XV. The Erastians censure me for vindicating the Power of the Keys and the necessity of Ministerial Church Discipline XVI The Independents blame me for being for a National Church and some of them for being against their unnecessary Covenanting terms of Communion and their giving too much Power to popular Votes XVII The Scots Presbyterians blame me for blaming the Imposition of their Covenant and for being so much for a superior sort of Bishops or Archbishops XVIII The English Diocesan Enemies to Episcopacy who are for setting