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	spare_v	2,118	5	9.2354	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A03611	The soules preparation for Christ. Or, A treatise of contrition Wherein is discovered how God breaks the heart and wounds the soule, in the conversion of a sinner to Himselfe.	Hooker, Thomas, 1586-1647.	1632 (1632)	STC 13735; ESTC S120676	151,498	275

at any time God would give repentance that they may acknowledge the truth and come to amendment of life out of the snares of the Devill It is onely but peradventure it is a rare worke and few have it Thirdly some will say God may give me repentance Quest. Christ came into the world to save sinners and why may he not save me Answ. I answere is that all is it come to this and who knows but that God may damne thee too if that be all why may you not say more truly what know I but that God may give me up to a hard heart and a blinde minde for ever and I may for ever be cast out of the presence of God is it but It may be all this while And therefore for a full answere consider these two things to shake off this carnal security wherby men resolve to pin their salvation Gods mercy though they purpose to oppose his mercy First know this that there is a time whē God will not shew mercy Behold saith God I gave her a time of repentance but she repented not therefore I will cast her upon the bed of sicknes and as our Saviour saith to Ierusalem Oh that thou hadst knowne in this thy day the things belonging to thy peace but now they are hid from thy eyes God had sealed up h●s mercy and the day of salvation was past and when the day is over though Noah Daniel and Iob should pray for a people they should save neither sonne nor daughter And if thy father did pray for thee that art a childe if mercy be past the Lord will not spare that man saith the text as if the Lord had said I have abundance of mercy but thou shalt never tast of it nay for ought I know the Lord may set a seale of condemnation upon thee and so give thee over to all evill to all sinne to all curses and blot out thy name from under heaven Are you yet perswaded that this is Gods word if you were but perswaded of the sorrow some have had it would make you looke about you The Wise man saith that wisedome professeth to poure out abundance of mercy saying Oh you simple ones how long will you contemne and despise puritie and holinesse Now marke when a people hath had this mercy and wisedome offered to them and yet they will despise it then shall the cry and call but I will not answere saith God they shal seeke me early but shall not finde me The period of Gods patience is come to an end and there is no expectation of mercy call and call you may but God will not heare you you whose consciences flie in your faces tel you that you have despised mercy you would none of Gods Counsells you hate the knowledge of his wayes Do you think to get it now by crying when the date of mercy is out No no you would have none of Gods mercy before and now he will none of you Doe you think it fit that grace and mercy and the spirit should still stand and waite upon you and strive and alwayes be despised Is it not marvellous just that that word which you have despised should never worke more and that mercy you have refused should never be offered to you any more It is just and you shall finde it so in the end and take heed the termes of mercy be not out Lastly if we cannot avoyde it then we are resolved to beare it as we may if we be damned we shall undergoe it as we are able This is that we poore ministers finde too often by woefull experience that when we have taken away all cavills from wicked men and then if we could weepe over them and mourne for them and beseech them to consider of it aright Marke what they say Good sir spare your paines we are sinners and if we be damned then every tub must stand upon his owne bottom we will beare it as well as we can What is the winde in that doore Is that all you can say O woe to thee that ever thou wert bone O poo●e creature if I should cease speaking all of us joyne together in weeping and lamenting thy condition it were the best course It is impossible thou shouldest ever beare Gods wrath with any comfort And let these three considerations be remembred retained which wil make any man come to a stand even the vilest wretches who will blaspheme and sweare and if they be damned they say they have borne something and they will also beare this as well as they can First judge the Lyon by the pawe judge the torments of hell by some little beginnings of it and the dregges of Gods vengeance by some little sipps of it And judge how unable thou art to beare the whole by thy inabilitie to beare a little of it in this life In the terrour of conscience as the Wiseman saith a wounded spirit who can beare When God layes the flashes of hell fire upon thy soule thou canst not indure it what soever a man can inflict upon a poore wretch may be borne but when the Almighty comes in battaile array against a poore soule how can he undergoe it witnesse the Saints that have felt it as also wittnesse the wicked themselves that have had some beginnings of hell in their consciences When the Lord hath let in a little horror of heart into the soule of a poore sinfull creature how is he trāsported with an insupportable burthen When it is day he wisheth it were night and when it is night he wisheth it were day All the friends in the world cannot comfort him nay many have sought to hang themselves to doe any thing rather then to suffer a little vengeance of the Almighty And one man is roaring and yelling as if he were now in hell already and admits of no comfort If the droppes be so heavy what will the whole sea of Gods vengeance be If he cannot beare the one how can he beare the other Secondly consider thine owne strength and compare it with all the strength of the creatures and so if all the creatures be not able to beare the wrath of the Almighty as Iob saith Is my strength the strength of stones or is my flesh as brasse that must beare thy wrath As if he had said It must be a stone or brasse that must beare thy wrath Though thou wert as strong as brasse or stones thou couldst not beare it when the mountaines tremble at the wrath of the Lord shall a poore worme or bubble and a shadow endure it Conceive thus much if all the diseases in the world did sease on one man and if all the torments that all the tyrants in the world could devise were cast upon him and if all the creatures in heaven and earth did conspire the destruction of this man and if all the devils in hell did labour to inflict punishments upon him you

hope that it may be otherwise For the Lord holds the soule by a secret vertue to himselfe and drawes the heart to seeke for mercy When the Prodigall child was brought to a desperate strait he beganne to consider what he had done whereas before he said shall I ever be a slave in my fathers familie but at last when all was spent what doth he doe he saith It is true I can looke for no help and favour and I cannot tell whether my Father will receive me or no yet my Fathers servants have bread enough and I shall starve for hunger O wretch that I am I have left a kinde fathers house yet come what will I will home to my father and say Father I have sinned Thus the soule thinkes with it selfe Oh the many sweet and gratious cals that I have had how often hath Christ come home to my heart and desired entrance and yet I shut the doore upon him shall I now goe home to the Lord J●sus Christ How justly may he reject me that have rejected him he may damne me and yet he may save me therefore I will wait upon him for mercy thus the soule will not off from God but it hath a secret hope wherewith the Lord keepes the heart to himselfe The first reason is because unlesse the Lord should leave this hope in the heart it would utterly be overthrowne with despaire You that make nothing of your loose thoughts and vaine speeches I tell you if God did set but one sinfull thought upon thy heart thy soule would sinke under it the Lords wrath would drive thee to marvelous desperation were it not that the Lord doth uphold thee with one hand as he beats thee downe with the other I say it were impossible but the soule should despaire as the proverb is But for hope the heart would breake Who can stand under the Almighty hand of God unlesse he doth uphold him God hath broken off the sinner by this sorrow but he will not throw him to hell As the gardiner cuts off a graft to plant it into a new stocke not to burne it So the Lord cuts off a sinner from all abomination but he wil not cast him into hell and the Lord melts the heart of a poore sinner but consumes him not but as the goldsmith melts his gold not to consume it all away but to make it a better vessel So the Lord melts a poore sinner to make him a vessell of glory the Lord will fire those proud hearts of yours and clip off those knotty lusts but if you belong to him he will leave a little remainder of hope that you shall be formed and fashioned not consumed It is the argument of the Lord by the Prophet He will come and dwell with and refresh the broken soule and he will not contend for ever lest the Spirit should faile before him If the Lord should let in but one scattering shot of his vengeance into the heart it were enough to drive the soule to despaire but God will lay no more upon us then will doe good to us Secondly if the Lord did not leave this hope in the heart a mans indeavours in the use of the meanes would be altogether killed if there be no hope of good then there is no care of using the meanes whereby any good may be obtained Good is the loadstone of all our endeavors a man will not labour for nothing therefore despaire killes a mans labours and pluckes up the root of all his indeavours If there be any good present hope makes us labour to encrease it if any good be to come hope labours to attaine it But good there must be So hope provokes the soule to use the meanes and to say I am a damned man but if there be any hope I will pray and heare and fast who knowes but God may shew mercy to my poore soule Now gather up all if without this secret hope the heart would faile and if without it a mans indeavours would be utterly crusht and come to nothing then it is no wonder that the Lord in his infinite mercy and wisedome when he will doe good to the soule leaveth some secret hope of mercy First we may here take notice of the marvelous tenderness and the loving nature of God in dealing with poore sinners that in al his courses of justice remembers some mercy and in all the potion of his wrath still he drops in some cordials of comfort he deales not with us as he might but so as might be most comfortable every way and usefull to worke upon our hearts to draw our soules home unto himself Should the Lord come out against a poore sinner and in his wrath let fly against him his soule would sinke downe under him but blessed be God that he doth not deale with our hearts as we deserve if he were as rigorous against us as we have beene rebellious against him we should sinke in sorrow and fall into despaire never to be recovered any more But as the Lord batters us so he releeves us as we may see in Saul he had gotten letters to Damascus and now he hoped being generall of the field to bind and to imprison all and he would not spare the poore Christians a jot but Christ meets him in the field threw him downe and might have killed him too but the Lord desired rather that he might be humbled then confounded I cannot read that ever he shewed his letters but layed all flat downe before the Lord and so was accepted the Lord shewed him his misery yet he lets him not perish there but gives him a little crevise of comfort When the Lord dealt with the children of Israel he said I will allure her and bring her into the wildernesse and there I will give her the valley of Achor for the doore of hope When Achan was stoned for stealing the wedge of gold the Israelites called it the valley of Achor and so it is called to this day The valley of Achor is the valley of trouble of stoning or consternation so the Lord doth here he draweth the soule into the wildernesse of sorrow for sinne but doth he leave the soule there no there is the doore of hope also and there the soule shall sing as in former times And hereupon the soule saith there is some hope that God will do good unto me for all this there is hope the Lord is melting me to make me a vessel of glory that 's a gloomy night when there is neither moone nor candle to be seen so though the soule be marvelous gloomy and heavy yet there is some crevise of light and consolation let into the heart still chearing and refreshing it the Lord knowes what metall we are made of and remembers that we are but dust therefore he so corrects us that he may leave an inkling of mercy and favour in our hearts O therefore