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	lord_n	redeemer_n	2,002	5	9.8210	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31858	Sermons preached upon several occasions by Benjamin Calamy ...; Sermons. Selections	Calamy, Benjamin, 1642-1686.	1687 (1687)	Wing C221; ESTC R22984	185,393	504

this he will take as a better expression of our gratitude than if we spent never so many days in verbal praises and acknowledgments of his love and bounty Let us all open our hearts and breasts to receive and entertain this great friend of mankind this glorious lover of our souls and suffer him to take full possession of them and there to place his throne and to reign within us without any rival or competitour and let us humbly beg of him that he would be pleased to finish that work in us which he came into the world about that by his bloud he would cleanse and wash us from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit that he would save us from our sins here and then we need not fear his saving us from everlasting destruction hereafter Which God of his infinite mercy grant to us all for the alone sake of our blessed Lord and Redeemer to whom with the Father c. A SERMON Preached on ASH-WEDNESDAY The Tenth Sermon St. MARK VI. 12. And they went out and preached that men should repent THOUGH repentance be a duty never out of season nay is indeed the work and business of our whole lives all of us being obliged every day to amend yet there are some particular times wherein we are more especially called upon to review our actions to humble our souls in God's presence to bewail our manifold transgressions and to devote our selves afresh to his service such are times of affliction either personal or publick when extraordinary judgments are abroad in the earth or are impendent over us or when we our selves are visited with any sickness or grievous calamity so also before we receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper we are then more strictly to examine our selves and renew our vows and resolutions of living better And to name no more the Church in all ages hath thought fit to set a-part some solemn times to call upon men more earnestly to repent and to seek God's face before it be too late such were the fasting-days before the feast of the resurrection or Easter and accordingly our Church as you have heard in the exhortation this day read to you doth at this time especially move us to earnest and true repentance that we should return unto our Lord God with all contrition and meekness of heart bewailing and lamenting our sinfull lives acknowledging and confessing our offences and seeking to bring forth worthy fruits of penance And such as now seriously set themselves to repent of all the sins they have committed using such abstinence as is necessary for the subduing the flesh to the spirit do certainly keep Lent far better than they who for so long time onely scrupulously abstain from all flesh and call filling themselves with the choicest fish sweet-meats and wine fasting I shall at this time suppose you sufficiently instructed in the nature of repentance it being one of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ as the Apostle to the Hebrews calls it Heb. 6.1 and also that you will readily acknowledge the indispensible necessity of it in order to the obtaining the pardon of your sins and eternal life and that which I now design is onely to set before you some if not the main hindrances and impediments that keep men from repentance and to endeavour to remove them and I shall discourse in order of these three of the many that might be mentioned I. Want of consideration II. The unsuccesfulness of some former attempts when men have resolved and begun to reform but have soon found all their good purposes and endeavours blasted and defeated this discourageth them from making any farther trials III. The hopes of long life and some better opportunity of repenting hereafter One of these is commonly the ground and cause of those mens remaining in an impenitent state who yet are convinced of the absolute necessity of repentance in order to their peace and happiness I. Want of consideration For could men but once be persuaded seriously and in good earnest as becometh reasonable creatures to consider their ways and actions patiently to attend to the dictates of their own minds and soberly to weigh the reasons and consequences of things their is no doubt to be made but Religion would every day gain more proselytes vertue and righteousness would prosper and flourish more in the world and men would soon become ashamed and afraid of nothing so much as vice and wickedness Of such infinite moment are the matters of Religion so mighty and strong are the arguments which it propounds to us so clear and convincing are the evidences it gives us of its truth and certainty so agreeable to our minds are all its principles so amiable and excellent its precepts so pleasant and advantageous is the practice of them that there seemeth nothing farther required to make all men in love with it but onely that they would open their eyes to behold its beauty that they would not stop their ears against all its most alluring charms Let men but once throughly ponder the folly and mischief of sin with the benefits and rewards of piety and an holy life let them but compare their several interests together and look sometimes beyond things present unto that state wherein they are to live for ever and use their understandings about these matters as they do about other affairs and it is impossible they should enjoy any tolerable peace or ease without a carefull and strict provision for another world Vice oweth its quiet possession of mens minds onely to their stupidity and inadvertency to their carelesness and inconsideration it reigns undisturbedly onely in ignorant secure unthinking spirits but streight loseth all its force and power when once men begin to look about them and bethink themselves what they are doing and whither they are going Could we but once gain thus much of wicked men to make a stand and pause a little and to cease but a while from the violent pursuit of their pleasures and fairly reflect upon their lives and see what is the fruit of all their past follies and consider the end and issue of these things could we I say but obtain thus much we might spare most of our pains spent in persuading them to repent their own thoughts would never suffer them to be in quiet till they had done it Let us but once begin to deliberate and examine and we are sure on which side the advantage will lie sin and wickedness can never stand a trial let our own reasons be but judges it hates nothing so much as to be brought to the light A vitious man however he may brave it in the world yet can never justify or approve himself to his own free thoughts and however he may plead for sin before others yet he can never answer the objections his own conscience would bring against it would he but once dare impartially to consider them But the misery of wicked men is that they

been brought to believe that it is a duty incumbent on or rather a privilege belonging to none but great and exemplary Saints to strong and well-grounded Christians that this Sacrament is not food proper for babes and novices for those who often fail in their duty who are still onely wrestling with their lusts but have not yet got the mastery or victory over them that we ought first to be fully assured of our salvation before we come to this holy table that this ordinance serves onely to strengthen and confirm our faith and repentance and all other Christian graces and vertues but not to beget any of them in us Now here thus much must be granted that this Sacrament doth belong onely to those that are within the pale of the visible Church onely to baptised Christians that do publickly own their faith and Christian profession that it is no means of converting Jews or Infidels and that even Christians by notorious evil lives whereby they become scandalous to their brethren and incur the censures of the Church may justly forfeit all their right and title to this Sacrament and farther that it is a bold prophanation of our Saviour's institution for any wicked person resolved to continue such to presume to bless God for that mercy and love of a Redeemer which he doth not in the least value Thus far we are on all hands agreed but not now to engage in any matter of controversie I shall onely say that I can see no reason why to one that is really sensible of his sins and miscarriages contrary to his baptismal vow and profession and maketh some kind of resolution to forsake them why I say this Sacrament as well as prayer or any other duties of Religion may not be reckoned as a means of begetting true repentance in him of turning him from sin to righteousness from the power of Satan to God and for this I shall offer onely this one plain argument which is obvious to every man that if the death of Christ it self his bitter passion his whole gratious undertaking for us was amongst other reasons designed by God also to convince us of the evil and danger of sin to bring us out of love with it and to engage us to a new and better life surely then the consideration of the same things represented to us in the Sacrament the commemoration of his death and passion there made may also serve for the same great ends and purposes If Christ died that we should die unto sin certainly then the memory of his death may justly be accounted a proper means of killing sin in us nay what in the nature of the thing can be imagined a more likely instrument to turn us from a life of sin to the practice of holiness than the frequent consideration of what our blessed Lord hath done and suffered for us and if so it cannot be necessary that this change should be completely wrought in us before we ever solemnly commemorate his bloudy passion for that were to suppose it necessary that the end should be obtained before we use the means It is not therefore absolutely necessary that we should be fully assured that we are in a state of grace and in God's favour and have repented enough and truly forsaken all our sins before we venture on this Sacrament it is sufficient that we heartily and sincerely resolve against them that we approach the Lord's table with honest and devout minds that we be really willing and desirous to use all means to become better and if thus disposed we come to the Sacrament I doubt not but we shall find it a most effectual means for the enabling us to leave our sins and to lead a better life It is not our unworthiness but our resolving to continue in that state that makes us unqualified for this Sacrament 4. If therefore by your unworthiness you mean that you live in sin and are resolved to doe so and therefore dare not come to the Sacrament for fear you should farther provoke God almighty I will suppose that in this you act prudently and warily but then I would advise you for the same reason and on the same account to leave off all other duties of Religion as well as this if you would act upon the same grounds you ought to reckon it the safest way never to pray to God any more nor ever again to appear in any religious assemblies nor to join in any part of God's solemn worship for God hath often declared that he doth far more abominate all such formal whining cringing hypocrites and will more severely punish them than the open and bold contemners of his authority and laws The prayer of the wicked man is an abomination to the Lord. He hates the addresses of those who call him father and master and in words acknowledge him but yet continually doe the things that are displeasing in his sight His soul loaths and nauseates all the services of impure worshippers You do but mock God basely fawn upon and impudently flatter him when you present your selves before him as his people and servants and yet secretly hate him and wish him out of the world nay for the same reason for which you forbear the Sacrament e'en lay aside your whole Christian profession openly renounce your Baptism deny your Saviour disown his Religion for that is the safest course whilst you resolve to continue in sin and disobedience for God's wrath shall be in the first place revealed against wicked Christians and better will it be in the last day for Tyre and Sidon for Sodom and Gomorra than for those who were called by Christ's name and yet did not depart from iniquity If this pretence be true that you go out of the Church when the Sacrament is to be administred lest you should farther provoke God by unworthy receiving it by the same reason keep from the Church altogether lest you as highly provoke God by being present at those prayers you do not heartily join in nor ever intend to live according to Or rather to speak yet more fully what is the true consequence of this you now know your selves unworthy and are resolved yet at least for some time to continue such alas what need such as you be afraid of this Text In this case it ought to seem indifferent to you whether you receive or not Damnation here threatned cannot be supposed reasonably to scare him from the Sacrament who runs the constant hazard of it by living in known sin This can be no such terrible word to an habitual and resolved sinner He that can swear and talk prophanely and live intemperately and loosely and without any fear or regret commit mortal sin in vain pretends fear of damnation for not doing that which is indeed his duty for it is a most odd and ridiculous thing to be afraid of doing what our Saviour hath commanded us whilst we are not in the least afraid every day of doing what he