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 |
|
A42780
|
The comforts of divine love Preach'd upon the occasion of the much lamented death of the reverend Mr. Timothy Manlove. With his character, done by another hand.
|
Gilpin, Richard, 1625-1700.
|
1700
(1700)
|
Wing G776; ESTC R216432
|
17,903
|
57
|
that thou shouldest magnifie him That thou shouldest set thy Heart upon him That thou shouldest visit him every Morning But if we should place Man in an higher Degree and consider him as a Servant yet still Gods Love looseth not its Lustre because at best we are but unprofitable Servants Luke 17.10 If we should do all that we are commanded we do but that which was our Duty to do and which we owe to God upon the Right of Creation yet we merit nothing God hath no Advantage or Profit by our Service Job 22.2 3. Can a Man be profitable unto God What gain is it to him that thou makest thy ways perfect If Man at best be so far below the Desert of God's Love How great will this Love appear if we consider Man as sinful Thus we are become Enemies not only breakers of his Law but opposite thereto and withal were helpless and could do nothing for our selves Both these the Apostle takes Notice of Rom. 5.6 as a transcendant Manifestation of God's Love and ver 8. God commendeth his Love to us 2. The Scriptures set forth the greatness of Gods Love by the great and wonderful Benefits bestowed on us We usually measure Love by the Fruits of it The Fruits of Gods Love cannot be numbred particularly the Promises are so loaden with them that they are justly called exceeding Great and Precious Promises In the gross They are things that pertain unto Life and Godliness 2 Pet. 1.3 All spiritual Blessings in heavenly Places Eph. 1.3 The Blessings of this Life and that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 All that is within the Circumference of Grace and Glory Psalm 84.11 3. But above all Gods Love is magnified by the Method which his Infinite Wisdom pitched upon for the bringing about his Purpose of Love this was the sending Christ to Die for Sinners This was such an adorable Mystery of Wisdom and Love that the Angels desire to look into it Christ himself speaks of it as transcendant beyond Comparison God so loved the World that he sent his only begotten Son c. John 3.16 and in 1 John 4.9 10. The Apostle represents it as the most glorious Publick Manifestation of Love In this was manifested the Love of God towards us because that God sent his only Son into the World Herein is Love c. II. The second thing that I am to explain and prove is That this Love of God is Vnchangeable It is frequently called an Everlasting Love Jer. 31.3 I have loved thee with an Everlasting Love His Mercy endureth for ever Having loved his own he loved them unto the end John 13.1 And it must needs be so if it be considered 1. That Gods Nature is Unchangeable God asserts it Mal. 3.6 I am the Lord I change not Psalm 102.25 26. The Heavens and the Earth shall perish but thou shalt endure Thou art the same and thy Years shall have no end James 1.17 With God is no variableness neither shadow of Turning The Unchangeableness of Gods Nature is evident by the very Light of Reason All that believe the Existence of God will yield that Deus est ens necessarium Independens God is a necessary and Independant Being That God is Self-existent is an Original and Fundamental Idea which we are to have of God This Monsieur Abbadie proves in his Vindication of the Christian Religion Sect. 2. Cap. 2. And from this necessity of his Being he deduceth his Immutability For if God depend not upon any other Being nor receive any thing from any other Being his Essence cannot then be varied And if his Nature is Unchangeable his Will is also Unchangeable It is true God doth sometime change his Promises and Threatnings but his Purposes he changeth not Mutat Sententiam sed non Decretum Men usually change their declared Purposes because all Men are Liers and so break their Promises or they Promise without due Consideration and when any thing happens which they foresaw not they repent But it cannot be thus with God My Counsel shall stand I have purposed it I will also do it Isa 49.10 11. The Reason of this we have in Numb 23.19 God is not a Man that he should lie neither the Son of Man that he should repent 2. That Gods Love is Unchangeable will further appear if we consider that his Love is bottomed upon a certain Foundation His own free Purpose and Christs Purchase This Reason the Apostle doth not obscurely suggest in the Text None can separate us from Gods Love because it is a Love to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Had it been built upon the sandy Foundation of our Merit we might have feared the failure of it upon every miscarriage or failure of Duty III. The Third Thing to be explained is That the Consideration of Gods Infinite and Unchangeable Love is a sweet Cordial in all Distresses and a Guard against all Affrightments of Fear to all those that are in Christ For 1. Those that are in Christ being reconciled and pardoned may be assured that however God may change his Countenance toward them yet he will not change his Heart He may be angry but Anger and Love are consistent All Men may be convinced of this Parents may be angry with their Children and yet love them It is true that Parental Corrections will be grievous to ingenuous Children they will mourn under them and thus God's Anger will be an heavy Burden to his Children as their Complaints and Sorrows do abundantly Witness Yet God would have us to consider his Love in his Rod Heb. 12.6 Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth To be without Chastisement is an Evidence that we are Bastards and not Sons God may be angry but he never changeth his Love into hatred 2. The greatest outward Afflictions are so managed by God that if we could duely observe his dealings with us we might perceive his Love intermixed with the Lashes of his Rod. All the while he manifests a fatherly Pity and Compassion Fury is not in him He hath a gentle Hand to the weak He remembers their Mold and Fashion They have also secret Supports and seasonable Deliverances 3. All these Distresses are so far from separating his Children from his Love that as he orders them they Work together for their good Their Graces are hereby exercised encreased and made bright as your Vessels are by scouring So that their Distresses yield the peaceable Fruits of Righteousness to those that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 They are hereby brought into nearer Communion with God and at last he lifts up the Light of his Countenance upon them like clear shining after Rain 4. It is further evident that all outward Troubles cannot separate them from the Love of God because he doth evidently strengthen their Hearts under them so that they prevail not to draw them off from God This Argument the Apostle fixeth on a Demonstration of what he had asserted In all these things we are
because the Love of God is a noble Subject and so vasily large that our Thoughts cannot reach it to any suitable Comprehension nor can our Tongues express the Breadth Length Depth and Heighth of it Eph. 3.17 So that when we have said all we can there is still Matter for more I shall now add something to what was spoken which was the less because I was forced to be short to give Room for the Funeral which waited our Attendance upon it All that I shall now add shall be I. To speak something in General of the Love of God II. To set before you the wonderful Priviledges and Advantages that flow in upon us from the Fountain of Divine Love And then III. To recommend the Contemplation of Gods Love to you that your Thoughts may be taken up with the Wonders of it I. In General the Love of God is not a meer Quality in God but his very Essence God is Love 1 John 4.8 This Love in God is a necessary result of his Goodness which is his very Nature There is none Essentially Absolutely and Perfectly Good but God Mat. 19.17 This Goodness God lets forth to all Creatures yet not with an Equality but so as might best shew forth his Soveraignty in doing with his own as he pleased And his Wisdom in adorning the World with a beautiful variety of Creatures of differing Perfections according to their different Kinds and Uses Hence it is usual to distinguish the Goodness of God into First A General Goodness to all Creatures All that he Created he saw was very Good And ever since he is good to all and his Mercy is over all his Works His Mercy is in the Heavens Angels share in it Psalm 36.5 And extends over all the Earth He preserveth Man and Beast ver 6. Secondly A Special Goodness to Man Though he be little if compared with the Infinite Perfections of the glorious God that it is a Wonder that God should be mindful of him Psalm 8.4 Much more that he should magnifie him Job 7.17 Yet is he so exalted above all his Fellow-Creatures of the Inferiour World that he is made but a little lower than the Angels and Lord of the Works of his Hands ver 5 6. of Psalm 8. Nor hath God left himself without a Witness of his singular Care and Providence over him in that he doth good and gives us Rain and fruitful Seasons filling our Hearts with Food and Gladness Thirdly There is a most special Goodness to his chosen Servants which David in Contradistinction to the two former calls Loving Kindness How excellent is thy Loving Kindness Psal 36.7 This most special Goodness is called Love which being understood in a most special Sense differs from that common Goodness which God imparts to his Creatures in that it signifies Gods special Delight and readiness to communicate and unite himself to the Object Loved Though this Love hath not properly different Degrees in God for none of his glorious Attributes admit of a more or less yet the Scriptures give us leave to make a Distinction in Compliance to the weakness of our Understandings So that usually the Love of God is said to be Threefold 1. A Love of Benevolence Gods Eternal Good Will this Christ speaks of John 3.16 God so loved the World c. And this is there spoken of as Antecedent to his giving Christ and as a Cause of it This Text is perplexed with Controversie because of the general Word the World which some labour to stretch so as to comprehend every Man But avoiding the Controversie we may understand the Text thus God so pitied lost Mankind Gentiles as well as Jews that he would not that all should perish but that a Community a World of Elect ones should through Faith in Christ obtain Everlasting Life 2. A Love of Beneficence which signifies the Acts of Love brought forth in Time after we had a Being in pursuance of his Eternal Purpose and Good Will Thus Christs Death our Justification and Sanctification are the Manifestation and Application of his Love and called so Eph. 5.25 Rev. 1.5 3. A Love of Complacency by which God rejoyceth over those that are in his Way and Method brought home to Christ This is fully expressed in John 14.21 23. Besides the Love of Benevolence My Father and I will manifest a more intimate Love and kind Familiarity Though I purposely avoided the abstruse and difficult Questions about Gods Love yet these Distinctions are necessary for the answering some Objections which might arise in your Hearts about the Unchangeableness of Gods Love The Love of Complacency and Beneficence admits of Variations of less or more being but Manifestations and Emanations of Divine Love upon us when yet his Love of Benevolence is the same II. The next thing I promised was a further account of the Priviledges and Advantages which accrew to us by the Love of God which are so great and numerous that I cannot reckon them up in order to you I must take up with that of David Psalm 40.5 6. Thy Thoughts to us-ward cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee If I would declare and speak of them they are more than can be numbred I will therefore in this Matter closely follow the Footsteps of those two great Apostles the great Admirers and Preachers of Gods Love The Apostle John in 1 John 3.1 reduces all the Priviledges of Love to this one That we should be called that is have Power and Right to be the Sons of God as John 1.12 This if rightly studied will appear to be so great a Love as cannot be fully expressed but to be left to Admiration Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us The Apostle Paul in this Eighth Chapter of the Romans doth as it were Comment upon and explain that of 1 John 3. in pursuit of that grand Conclusion Rom. 8.1 There is therefore now no Condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus That the Odours of this precious Oyntment might be further diffused for the Refreshment of all that are in Christ which he describes by the Power and Influence of the Holy Spirit over them he sets himself to declare the Priviledges of such and fixeth first upon our Sonship ver 12. As the Apostle John did but he endeavours a more particular Enumeration of our Priviledges yet so that he reduceth them all to this of our being the Children of God The Advantages which he insists upon arising from this grand Priviledge are Three First If we are Sons we partake of the Spirit of our Father and this we do several Ways 1. We are Led by the Spirit ver 14. Whether we read the Verse backward or forward it holds true As many as are led by the Spirit are the Sons of God And as many as are the Sons of God have been and shall still be led by the Spirit Let us take in this Consideration together with that of Sonship and then