Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	father_n	holy_a	sinner_n	9,874	5	9.5686	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31933	Englands looking-glasse presented in a sermon preached before the Honorable House of Commons at their late solemne fast, December 22, 1641 / by Edmund Calamy ...	Calamy, Edmund, 1600-1666.	1642 (1642)	Wing C236; ESTC R206351	35,591	72

Nationall It must be personall for so saith the Text If that Nation against vvhom I have pronounced turn from their evill A malitia sua Every man hath some sinne vvhich is his peccatum in delicijs his dilectum delictum his beloved sin the sin of his constitution Let us turne from that sin vvhatsoever it is and if vve know not vvhat that sin is let us turne from every sinne and so vve shall be sure to turne from that sin This the King of Niniveh commanded that every one of his Subjects should cry mightily unto God and not onely so but every one to turne from his evill way and from the violence that is in their hands Thus must we vve must be able to say vvith David I have kept my selfe from my sin We live in times wherein there vvas never more turning Some turne like the Dogge to the vomit and like the Sow to the wallowing in the myre Some turne Atheists some Papists some Socinians some Arminians Some turne like the weather-cock which way the winde bloweth which way soever preferment goes that way they turne Many turn Neurers Many turne from Christs side to be of Antichrists side Many turne cold and Icy for God and his Church Some are like unto the Chamelion that will change it selfe into any colour but white So many will turne to be any thing but good If times turne ill they will be naught but if times turne good they will not be good But I beseech you let all us here present before the Lord this day turn sincerely unto the Lord our God from all iniquity Let us strip our selves stark naked of all the rags of the old Adam Repent of your pride dust and ashes doth better become you Repent of your gluttony and drunkennesse let weeping be your drinke and fasting your meate Repent of your swearing Condemne your selves out of your owne mouths that God may justifie you Repent of your covetousnesse If ever you expect to gaine Heaven looke not after the earth so much Repent of your Adultery that God may marry you unto himselfe and least you be married to eternall flames Repent of your security that you may live securely No way to escape damnation but by Repentance and no man that ever repented aright but did escape damnation Oh that this day might be the conversion of some sinner that they may be able to say From such a fasting day I began to turn unto God! Oh that this Fasting-day might be a Festivall-day to the Angels in Heaven who rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner Oh that some Zacheus would make restitution this day That some Prodigall childe would return to his Heavenly Father God Almighty exceedingly delights to shew mercy to a penitent sinner As a husband-man delights much in that ground that after long unfruitfulnesse proves fruitfull and calls his friends and neighbours to behold that ground As a Captain loves that Souldier that once fled away cowardly and afterwards returns and fights valiantly Even so God is wonderfully inamoured with a sinner that having once made shipwrack of a good conscience yet at last returns and swims to Heaven upon the plank of Faith and Repentance This is a notable provocation to all wretched hard-hearted sinners to turn unto God by true Repentance God is so farre from refusing you that he rejoyceth in your conversion and is more ready to receive you then you are to come And I may safely adde That in some sense God delights more in a penitent Prodigall then in one of his righteous children As the good Shepheard rejoyced more in his lost sheep then in his 99. sheep And the good Woman in her lost groat And the good Father in his lost sonne more then in the sonne that went not astray It is true that Innocency of life is better simply and absolutely considered than Repentance And it is more to be desired to live without sin than to have grace to repent after sin As a whole Garment is better than a rent Garment and yet a rent Garment may be so handsomely pieced together that there shall be little difference between that and a whole Garment A penitent sinner that feelingly apprehends the great mercy of God in pardoning so great a sinner as he was the sense of this distinguishing love of God towards him raiseth up his heart to a higher pitch of zeal and enables him to draw neer to God with more affection and fervently to be more tender of sin and to do and suffer more for God many times than those that are more righteous than he is As suppose two men at Sea the one comes safely to shore without danger the other escapes to shore not without great hazard and perill of life He that comes without hazard hath more cause simply to be thankfull yet ordinarily he that had the greater danger out of sense of his danger will return more praise than the other Saint Paul laboured more than all the other Apostles because he was a greater sinner than all the other Apostles and had obtained greater mercy Therefore Mary Magdalen loved much because much was forgiven her We never reade that the blessed Virgin ever came to wash the Feet of Christ with her tears But Mary Magdalen a great sinner she did it and she comes first to the Sepulcher and afterwards as some report she spent 30. yeers in Gallia Narbonensi in weeping for her sins Gregory brings the example of David who after he had obtained pardon for murdering Vriah and committing adultery with Bathsheba fell a longing after the water of Bethlehem But when the water was brought He poured it forth before the Lord and would not drink of it because it hazarded the lives of his men Observe how tender of sin David was after his Repentance He that before had spilt innocent blood is now troubled in conscience for putting the lives of his men in jeopardy He that before longed for another mans wife doth now repent for desiring another mans water Bernard brings the example of Peter who before his denyall considently told Christ Though all forsook him yet he would not Yet afterwards when he had repented of his denying of Christ he was so tender that when Christ purposedly asked him three times Lovest thou me more than these he answers not comparatively as before but positively Onely Lord thou knowest I love thee And this is another provocation to exhort all sinners to lay hold upon this holy Anchor this wrath-charming Repentance Come all ye prodigall children all ye lost sheep that have gone astray Behold your Heavenly Father is not onely ready but joyfull to receive you and if rightly understood more joyfull than in his faithfull Children Was there ever mercy like to this Oh that we had hearts to embrace it And the greater any man is in estate and parts the more honour God shall have if such a man will turn to God this day Great men are

do all these things And therefore God gives warning to imprint this doctrine That there is no evill of punishment but from God 2. Because God is loath to punish Minatur Deus ut non puniat they that minde mischiefe give no warning When Absalom intended to murder Amnon he spake neither good nor bad unto him 2 Sam. 13.22 Neither would God reveale his intentions to destroy us but only because he desires not to destroy us I reade of one that came to murder one of the Roman Emperors and by speaking these words Hunc tibi pugionem mittit Senatus detexit facinus fatuus non implevit Another was seen whetting his sword and by that suspected and detected But it is otherwise with God he gives many items and sets many Beacons on fire before he destroyes a Nation As Ambrose observes upon Gen. 9.13 He puts his bow in the Cloud Non sagittam sed arcam not his Arrow but his Bow the Bow cannot hurt us but the Bow forewarns us of the Arrow and the string of the Bow is to us-ward to shew how unwilling God is to punish He must first turn the Bow and put in the Arrow before he can shoot And as it is Psalm 7.12 If you will not turn I will whet my sword I will bend my Bow and make ready my Arrow First God whets his sword before he strikes and bends his Bow before he shoots his Arrow is unprepared c. And all this because he is a Father of mercies and a father you know is loath to whip his child I afflict not willingly Lamen 3.33 Fury is not in me Isa. 27.4 It is your sinnes that put thunderbolts in my hands As a Woman brings forth her childe with pain and a Bee never stings but when he is provoked So it is with our good God He never punisheth but when there is no remedy 2 Chron. 36. 15 16. When God came to punish Adam he came slowly in the cool of the day but when he commeth to shew mercy he comes leaping over the hills and skipping over the mountains God was but six dayes in making the whole World and yet as Chrysostome well observes he was seven dayes destroying one City the City of Iericho God gives warning for the glorification of his justice That all those persons and nations that are destroyed may have no Apology no excuse but may be speechlesse at the great day of account Ne dicant sibi non praedictum Cave There is no Christian nation shall be able to say That God destroyed them and yet never gave them warning Read the second and third Chapters of the Revelation observe Christs warning to the seven Churches This made them without excuse forewarned forearmed If this be Gods ordinary course Let us admire and adore the patience of God towards our Persons in particular and towards this Nation in generall in which we live A Nation not worthy to be beloved A Nation as ripe for destruction as any other Nation How many Tapers hath God set on fire How many white Flags of Mercy hath God hung out How often hath he shot off his warning peeces to forewarne this Nation that God would pluck it up pull it down and destroy it Ionathan shot three Arrowes not to hurt David but to help David by foretelling him of Sauls murderous intention against him But God hath shot not only three but eight Arrowes to forewarne and forearme us The Lord awaken our secure hearts to the consideration of these things God hath spoken eight wayes to this Nation by all which he hath intimated his intention to destroy us 1. He hath spoken unto us by the voice of his Ministers that with one mouth and lip have foretold us of desolation and destruction It hath beene the constant voice of Gods faithfull Servants from the Pulpit for these many yeares early and late Now this voice is not to be slighted For surely the Lord will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his Servants the Prophets Amos 3.7 2. He hath spoken to us by the voice of his lesser judgements For God hath two sorts of judgements Rods and Scorpions Footmen and Horsemen as it is expressed Ierem. 12.4 And he deales with a Nation as a Physitian with his Patient If a lesser potion will not worke the Physitian will prescribe a stronger God hath sent many lesser judgements The Small-pox unseasonable Weather the Plague in a moderate way but these judgements have beene slighted and contemned And lesser judgements contemned are Harbingers to usher in greater God threatneth Levit. 2.6 If his people will walk contrary to him he will punish them seven times more and afterwards he addes That if they will not be reformed he will punish them yet seven times more and yet seven times more Vers. 18.21 24 28. I even I will chastise you in fury seven times more for your sins As the ancient Consuls of Rome had Rods and Axes carried before them Rods as ensignes of their lenity to penitent offenders But Axes as tokens of their severity against incorrigible offenders So God hath his Rods and his Axes his puning Knife and his Axe If his pruning Knife will not amend us his Axe will hew us down and cast us into the fire 3. God hath spoken to us by the death of his godly Servants For the righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart and mercifull men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evill to come Isa. 57.1 Thus Methusalem that godly Patriarch died the very yeere the flood came And his name signifieth A messenger of death His death did presage the flood Thus Austin was taken away by death immediately before the sacking of Hippo where he lived Paraeus before the taking of Heilderberg Luther a little before Warres came into Germany as he himselfe did fore-signifie at his death Thus the death of Saint Ambrose was a fore-runner of the ruine of Italy The many Reverend Preachers The Chariots and Horsemen of Israel that in these few yeares are gone to their graves in peace are as so many blazing Comets to portend our ruine 4. God hath spoken to us by the voice of other Protestant Nations beyond the Seas that have drunk deepe of the Cup of Gods wrath Herodotus tells us that in a certaine Egyptian Temple there was a Statue built for Sennacherib this was he that besieged Ierusalem and blasphemed the God of Israel and was afterwards slaine by his sonnes and upon this Statue was this Inscription {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Look upon me and learn to be righteous Me thinks I heare Rochell Bohemia the Palatinate and other parts of Germany saying Oh England look upon us and learn to be righteous God will not alwayes make you like Goshen when we are plagued as Egypt make you like Noah in the Ark when we are drowned with a flood of miseries make you like Gideons