Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	endure_v	king_n	sea_n	2,375	5	9.1662	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40891	XXX sermons lately preached at the parish church of Saint Mary Magdalen Milkstreet, London to which is annexed, A sermon preached at the funerall of George Whitmore, Knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City / by Anthony Farindon.; Sermons. Selections	Farindon, Anthony, 1598-1658.	1647 (1647)	Wing F434; ESTC R2168	760,336	744

Million what digladiations what Tragedies about these and if every particular Fancy be not pleased the cry is as if Religion were breathing out its last when as true Religion consists not principally in these and these may seem to have been passed over to us rather as favours and Honours and Pledges of his Love then strict and severe Commands That we must wash and eat are Commands but which bring no Burden or hardship with them the performance of them being more easie as no whit repugnant to flesh and blood It is no more but wash and be clean Eat in remembrance of the Greatest Benefit that ever man-kinde received All the difficulty is in the performance of the vow we make in the one and the due preparation of the soul for the other which is the subduing of the lusts and Affections the Beatifying of the inward man which is truely and most properly the service of Christ which is the Ark of our Ark the Glory of our Glory and the Crown of all those outward Advantages which our Lord and Master hath been pleased to afford us Mic. 6.6 we may say with the Prophet Micah wherewith shall we come before the Lord or bow our selves before the High God will he be pleased with the diligence of our ear with our Washing and Eating and answer with him at the eighth verse He hath shewed thee oh man what he doth require to do justly and to love mercy and to walk Humbly with thy God Ite ad locum meum Siolo Goe to my palace in Silo and there learn to disdeceive your selves by their Example lest if all your Religion be shut up with theirs in the Ark all in outward Ceremony and Formality God may strike both us and the Ark we trust to recover and call back those Helps and Gracious advantages from such prodigal usurpers For when all is for the Ark nothing for the God it represents when we make the Pulpit our Ark and chain all Religion to it when the lips of the Preacher which should preserve knowledge and be as a Ship as Basil speaks to conveigh that Truth which is more precious then the Gold of Ophir Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brings nothing but Apes and Peacocks loathsome and ridiculous Fancies when the Hearers must have a Song for a Sermon and that too many times much out of Tune when both Hearer and Speaker act a part as it were upon a stage even till they have their Exit and go out of the World when we will have no other Laver but that of Baptisme no bread but that in the Eucharist when we are such Jewish Christians as to rely on the shell and outside on External formalities and performances more empty and lesse significant lesse effectual then their Ceremonies we have just cause to fear that God may do unto us as he did unto Shilo or as he threatened the same people Amos 8. Send a Famine into the land not a Famine of bread but of Hearing the word and such a famine we may have though our loaves do multiply though Sermons be our dayly Bread that he may deprive us of our Sacraments or deliver them up to Dagon to be polluted by superstition or to be troden under foot by prophaners which of the two is the worst that we may even loath and abhor that in which we have taken so vain so unprofitable so pernicious delight and condemn our selves and our own foul ingratitude and with sorrow and confusion of Face subscribe to this Inscription Dominus est It is the Lord. Concl. And now we have setled the inscription Dominus est it is the Lord upon every particular which may seem at first not so well placed but as the head of Jupiter upon the body of a Tyrant a merciful God plucking up and destroying his own people fighting for the Philistine against the Israelite as if a dead Israelite were of a sweeter savour in his Nostrils then a dead Philistine and the Ark were better placed in the House of Dagon then in his own Tabernacle but look again and consider it aright and you will say it was rightly fixed For the wayes of God are equall Ezek. 18.29 but ours are unequal and nothing but the inequality of our own makes his seem so whilest he remaines the same God in the fire and in the Earth-quake which he was in the still voice the same when he slew them and when his light shined upon their his Justice takes not from his Mercy nor his mercy from the equity of his Justice but he is just when he bindes up and merciful when he wounds us his justice his wisdom his mercy are over all his works The same God that overthrew Pharaoh in the Red sea that slew great and mighty kings did deliver up his own people good and bad did deliver them into their Enemies hands did deliver up the Ark to Dagon for his Justice his wisdom and mercy endure for ever And now having gone along with old Eli in his discovery we cannot but take up his resolution let him do what seemeth him good and we called it Elies use or application of his Doctrine and let us for conclusion make it ours and learn to kisse the Son lest he be angry nay to kisse him to bow before him when he is angry to offer him up a peace-offering our wills of more power then a Hecatomb then all our numerous Fasts and Sermons to appease his wrath and to bring peace and order again into the World that our wills being his being subdued by his Spirit and delivered up into that blessed Captivity to be under his Beck and Command they may stand out against all our natural and carnal desires and check and quiet them which is the truest surrendry we can make and makes us of the same minde with Christ who would not saith Hilary Quod vult of fice did ipsum concedi sibi non vult De Trin. l. 10. have the granted which he would have done did not refuse the Cup but desired it might passe from him that as Saul when he was struck to the ground cryed out Lord what wouldst thou have me do so may we when his hand is upon us in our trembling and astonishment say Lord what wouldst thou have us to suffer Fiat voluntas Thy will be done though it be in our destruction By this we testifie our consent with him this is our friendship with God and they who as Abraham was are Gods friends have idem velle i●em nolle will and nill the same things with him are ready Sequi Deum to follow God in all his wayes when he seems to withdraw and when he comes neer us when he shines upon us and when he thunders in what he commands and what he permits in what he absolutely will do and what he makes way for and will suffer to be done to follow him in all Sen. ep 96. and bow before

pleasing but deceitfull contemplation of faith he speaks no other language but do this and exalts charity to the higher place that their vain boasting of faith might not be heard for faith saith he hath no tongue nay no life without her and thus in appearance he takes from the one to establish the other and sets up a throne for charity not without some shew and semblance of prejudice to faith For last of all to give you one reason more Faith indeed is naturally productive of good works For what madnesse is it to see the way to eternity of blisse and not to walk in it Each article of our Creed points out as with ●e finger to some vertue to be wrought out in the minde and publisht in the outward man If I beleeve that Christ is God it will follow I must worship him If he died for sinne the consequence is plain enough we must die to it If he so loved vs the Apostle concludes we must love one another charity is the proper effect of faith and upon faith and charity we build up our hope if we beleeve the promises and perform the condition if we beleeve him that loved us and love him and keep his commandments we are in heaven already But yet we may observe that the corruption of our hearts findes somthing in faith it self to abate and weaken her force and power and to take off her activity and so makes the very object of faith an encouragement to evil and which is a sad speculation the mercy of God a kinde of temptation to sinne Mercy is a pretious oyntment and mercy breaks our head mercy blots out sin and mercy revives it mercy is our hope and mercy is made our confusion we should sin no more but we sin more and more because his mercy endureth for ever we turn the grace of God into wantonness and make this Queen of his glorious attributes to wait on our lust of a Covering a purging a Healing a saving I tremble to speak it we make it a damning mercy for had we not abused it had we not relied upon it too much had we not laid upon it all our uncleannesse our impenitency and wilfull obstinacy in sinne it would have upheld us and lifted us up as high as Heaven but our bold presumption layes hold of it and it flings us off and we fall from it into the bottomlesse pit This then we may take for a sufficient reason why our Apostle puts not faith into his description of Pure Religion and in the next place as he doth not mention faith so he passeth by in silence rather then forgets those other excellent duties of prayer and hearing the word For these two whatsoever high esteem we put upon them howsoever we magnifie them till they are nothing till our selves are worse than nothing worse than the beasts that perish yet are they not the end and their end is perdition who make them so and think that to aske a blessing is to have it when they put it from them or to hear of God is to love him to hear of that happinesse which he hath laid up is to be in Paradise The perfection of the creature saith the Philosopher is ad naturae suae sinem pervenire to attain to the end for which he was made and the end of the Christian is to be like unto Christ that where he is He may be also that is his end that is his perfection Now to draw this home these two to Hear and to Pray do not make us like unto him but are sufficient means to renew the image of God in us that so we may resemble him they are not the haven to which we are bound but are as prosperous and advantagious windes to carry us to it Quod per se bonum est semper est bonum that which is good in it self and for it self is alwayes good as true piety true Religion but those duties which tend to it have their reward or punishment as they reach or misse of that end what is hearing if it beget not obedience what are prayers if they be but the calves of our lips Oh 't is a sad question to be ask't when we shall see Christians full of malice and deceit Have they not heard they have heard that malice shall destroy the wicked that deceit is an abomination that oppression shall eat them up yet will be such monsters as if they never heard oh 't is a sad expostulation to the wicked Have they not heard and as sad a return may be made to our prayers we may stretch out our hands and God may hide his eyes from us we may make many prayers and he not hear we may lift up our hands and vocie unto Heaven and our minde stay below wallowing in the mire of foul pollutions mixt and ingendering with the vanities of the world for as we may fast to strife and debate so we may pray to strife and debate as there may be a politick Fast so our prayer may have more in it of craft than devotion we may make it a trade a craft an occupation and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stoutly labor and holdout not to take the kingdom of Heaven but to devour widows houses make this Key of the Gates of Heaven a picklock to open Chests and so debase it to these vile offices which is a sin cujus non audeo dicere nomen for which I have no name bad enough to give it and what is Prayer then what are the means if we rest in them as in the end what are they if we draw and force them to a bad end what are they if we make no use of them at all or make this sad and fatall use of them if our Prayers bring down a curse our hearing flatter us in our disobedience if we Hear and Pray and Perish These two and what else of this nature have their worth and efficacy from Religion from charity to our selves others which are as the two wings on which our prayers ascend and mount to the presence of God to bring down a blessing from thence These sanctifie our fasts these open the ears of the deaf that hearing they may hear and understand These consecrate our Pulpets and are the best panegyricks on our Sermons and make them indeed the word of God powerfull in operation and without these our prayers are but babling and the Sermons which we hear but so many libels against us or as so many knells and sad indications that they that hear them are condemned and dead already For again to visit the fatherlesse and widows in affliction that is to be full of good works and to renounce and abstain from the pleasures of the world for those pleasures we dote on those riches we sweat for are those that bespot us is a far harder task then to say a hundred pater no sters or to continue our prayers as Saint Paul did his preaching