Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	eye_n	lord_n	wait_v	2,901	5	9.3473	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59814	A discourse concerning the divine providence by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1694 (1694)	Wing S3286; ESTC R8109	271,248	406

fears and aversions submit to the Divine Will for the more what we suffer is against our own will the greater is our submission to the Will of God Submission to God does not consist in courage and fortitude of mind to bear Sufferings which men may have without any sense of God and which the profoundest Reverence for God will not always teach us but he submits who receives the Bitter Cup and drinks it though with a Trembling heart and hand This ought to be observed for the comfort of those who have a very Devout sense of God and Reverence for his Judgments but betray great weakness of Mind and disorders of Passions under their Sufferings who are very impatient of Pain and have such soft and tender Passions that every Affliction galls them and when they reflect upon these Disorders this creates new and greater Troubles to them for they conclude that all this is want of a due Submission to the Will of God But Religion was never intended to extinguish the Sense and Affections of Nature to reconcile us to Pain or to make all things indifferent to us and while there is any thing that we love it will be grievous to part with it and while there is any thing that we fear it will be grievous to suffer it Religion will rectify our Opinions of things and cure our fondnesses and set bounds to our Passions but when all these flattering or frightful disguises are removed which magnified the Good or Evil that is in things yet Good and Evil they are and will excite in us either troublesome or delightful Passions and this will exercise our Submission to God to part with what we love and to suffer what we fear and were not this the case there were no use of Submission To explain this in a few words let us consider how that man must suffer who suffers with Submission to God and that is the Submission which we owe to Providence Now a man who suffers with Submission must not reproach and censure the Divine Providence but think and speak honourably of God how hardly soever he deals with him he may complain of what he suffers both to God and men but he must not complain of God This was Iob's Behaviour Naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return thither the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away and blessed be the name of the Lord in all this Iob sinned not nor charged God foolishly I Job 21 22. And the Prophet David was an Example of the like Submission I was dumb I opened not my mouth because thou didst it 39. Psalm 9. He submitted silently and patiently as to God's hand opened not his mouth against God though he complains of the Wickedness of men and of the severity of his Sufferings Deliver me from all my transgressions make me not the reproach of the foolish remove thy stroke away from me I am consumed by the blow of thine hand 8 10. To reproach and revile Providence to fret against God or as Iob's Wife advised him to curse God to be weary of his Government and impatient to think that we cannot resist and cast off so uneasy a yoke this is directly contrary to Submission Such men suffer God's Will because they cannot help it but they would Rebel if they could those who are so outragious against what God does and so impatiently angry with God for doing it only want power to stay his hand and to pull him from his Throne Submission to God is the Submission of our Wills to the Will of God Now though no man can absolutely chuse sufferings for suffering is a natural Evil and therefore not the object of a free choice yet men may chuse suffering against the natural byass and inclination of their own wills in Subjection to the will of God Of this our Saviour is a great Example who express'd a great aversion against suffering Prayed earnestly Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not my will but thy will be done Our own wills will draw back and recoil at suffering For no affliction is for the present joyous but grievous but yet a will that is subject to God will deny it self and chuse that God's will should take place And this is our Submission to the Will of God in suffering yet how uneasie soever it be to us we are so far from complaining against God that we would not have it otherwise when God sees fit it should be so that though we do not and cannot chuse sufferings yet we chuse that the Will of God should be done though it be to suffer Another act of Submission to God is when we wait patiently on God till he think fit to deliver us when notwithstanding all we suffer our hope and trust and dependance is still on God To submit to God is to submit in Faith and Hope to submit as to the Corrections and Discipline of a Father for it is impossible for any man to submit without Hope as impossible as it is to be contented with final Ruin When we cast off our Hope in God there is an end of our Submission then we shall come to that desperate conclusion Behold this evil is of the Lord why should I wait on the Lord any longer 2 Kings 6. 33. But never was there a greater expression of Submission than that of Iob Though he slay me yet will I trust in him he also shall be my salvation for a hypocrite shall not come before him 13. Job 15 16. This the Psalmist has fully express'd 27. Psalm 13 14. I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of living Wait on the Lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart wait I say on the Lord. To Hope in the Mercy and Goodness of God even when he strikes to wait Patiently till he will be Gracious to make our complaints to him and to expect our Deliverance and Salvation only from him this is to Submit to the Will of God to make his Will our Will to attend all the motions of his Providence as patiently and diligently as a Servant does the commands of his Lord as it is elegantly represented 123. Psalm 1 2. Vnto thee lift I up mine eyes O thou that dwellest in the heavens Behold as the eyes of servants look upon the hand of their masters and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that he have mercy upon us This is that Submission which we owe to Providence under all the Evils and Calamities of Life and if we would make this Submission easy and chearful we must possess our Souls with a firm perswasion of the Wisdom and Goodness of God We must not look upon him a meer Soveraign and Arbitrary Lord for to submit to meer Arbitrary Will and Power is and will be very grievous

94. Psalm 7 8 9 10. Yet they say The Lord shall not see neither shall the God of Iacob regard it Vnderstand ye brutish among the people and ye fools when will ye be wise He that planted the ear shall he not hear And he that formed the eye shall he not see He that chastiseth the heathen shall not he correct And he that teacheth man knowledg shall not he know The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity So that these men took it for granted That if God did see and hear and know what was done in the world he would reward men accordingly And therefore the Providence of God is described in Scripture by his seeing and observing the Actions of men 31. Job 4. Doth not he see my ways and count all my steps 33. Psal. 18 19. Behold the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him upon them that hope in his mercy that is to protect them and to do good to them as it follows to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine And therefore when good men pray for help and succour they only beg God to see and take notice of their condition 1. Lam. 11. See O Lord and consider for I am become vile 64. Isa. 9. Behold see we beseech thee we are all thy people Thus in Hezekiah 's Prayer Incline thine ear O Lord and hear open thine eyes O Lord and see and hear all the words of Senacherib which hath sent to reproach the living God And therefore God's seeing is made an argument that he will reward or punish 10. Psalm 14. Thou hast seen it for thou beholdest mischief and spite to requite it with thy hand And indeed it is not to be imagined that a holy and just God who sees and observes all the good and evil that is done in the world should not reward the good and punish the wicked for there is no other Holy and Just Being in the world that has authority to reward and punish but would certainly do it And if the Proof of a Divine Providence be resolved into God's knowing what is done in the world the Dispute will be soon ended for those who believe that there is a God and that he is an Infinite Omnipresent Mind cannot doubt whether he sees and knows all things As the Psalmist elegantly expresses it 139. Psalm 1. 13. O Lord thou hast searched me and known me Thou knowest my down-sitting and my uprising thou understandest my thought afar off Thou compassest my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my ways For there is not a word in my tongue but lo O Lord thou knowest it altogether Thou hast beset me hehind and before and laid thine hand upon me Such knowledge is too wonderful for me it is too high I cannot attain unto it Whither shall I go from thy Spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence If I ascend up into heaven thou art there if I make my bed in hell behold thou art there If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me If I say surely the darkness shall cover me even the night shall be light about me yea the darkness hideth not from thee but the night shineth as the day the darkness and the light are both alike to thee for thou hast possessed my reins thou hast covered me in my mother's womb How is it possible that an Omnipresent Mind should be ignorant of any thing or that the Maker of the World should not be present with all his Creature or that being present and seeing all their Actions he should be an idle and unconcerned Spectator 4thly For I think in the next place it is past all dispute that he who made the World cannot be unconcerned for his Creatures He hath implanted in most Creatures a natural care of their Offspring and it is made an argument of want of understanding in the Ostrich That she leaveth her Eggs in the Earth and warmeth them in the dust and forgetteth that the foot may crush them or that the wild Best may break them She is hardened against her young ones as if they were not hers Her labour is in vain without fear because God hath deprived her of wisdom neither hath he imparted to her understanding 39. Job 15 16 17. And can we think then that an infinitely wise Being should be as unconcerned for the World as the Ostrich is for her Eggs It is certain the Maker of the World is no sluggish unactive Being for to make a World is a Work of infinite Wisdom and Counsel of Divine Art and Power and not only to give being to that which was not is it self an act of excellent Goodness but there are so many legible Characters of a Divine Bounty and Goodness stamped upon all the Works of Nature that we must conclude the World was made by an infinitely good Being and it is impossible that a wise and good Being who is a pure Act and perfect Life can cast off the care of his Creatures Besides the Laws of God and Men natural Affection will not suffer men to forget their Children and though God has no Superior his own Nature is a Law to himself This is sufficient to shew how necessarily the belief of a God infers a Providence and therefore no Philosophers excepting Epicurus and his Sect who acknowledged a Deity ever denied a Providence and Tully tells us that he retained the name of a God but destroyed his Being The Stoick in Tully concludes a Providence from the acknowledgment of a God And therefore tells us that Providence signifies the Providence of God And those Philosophers made no scruple of calling God Providence and Fate and the Power of an Eternal and Perpetual Law For indeed Mankind had no other notion of a God than that he is an Excellent and Perfect Being who made and who governs the World This is the notion which the Philosophers who acknowledg'd a Deity defended against Epicurus and other Atheists this is the notion of a God which Atheists oppose the God whom they fear an Eternal Lord who observes and takes notice of every thing and thinks himself concerned in all the Affairs of the World And therefore the Dispute Whether there be a God or no principally resolves it self into this Whether this World and all things in it is made and governed by Wisdom and Counsel or by Chance and a blind material Necessity and Fate which proves that the very notion of God includes a Providence or else either to prove or to overthrow the Doctrine of Providence would neither prove nor overthrow the Being of a God This I am sure is very plain That the same Arguments which prove the Being of a God prove a Providence If the beauty variery usefulness and wise contrivance of the