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
A89582	A sermon preached to the two Houses of Parliament, at their solemn meeting to praise God for his infinite mercy in the restoring of the said Houses of Parliament to their honor and freedome with so little effusion of blood: at the Abbey-Church in Westminster, Aug. 12. 1647. / By Stephen Marshall, B.D. Minister of Finchingfield in Essex.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1647 (1647)	Wing M779; Thomason E401_29; ESTC R201798	19,695	33

God had offered such a faire meanes to take him off from it There is another in the second of Samuel of a great Souldier and Generall Joab by name when hee was in the pursuit of one Sheba that had played the Rebell and Traytor against his King Joab had pursued him far and now had chac'd him into a Citie called Abell there besieged him and the Citie for his sake with a purpose to batter the Walls downe and to destroy all that were in the Citie as guilty of protecting this villaine very seasonably a wise woman over the wall calls to Joab and would know of him why hee would come to destroy a Citie of Israel and so to swallow up a part of the inheritance of the Lord now marke Joabs answer The Lord forbid saith he God forbid it is farre from mee that ever I should take any pleasure to devoure or swallow up there is no such matter there is one Sheba a Traytor against his King I pursue him onely deliver him up I am gone not a man dies amongst you You see a Souldier a man enur'd to blood abominates the thoughts of it further then necessitie compells to have his hand in the blood of any of Gods people This will yet bee clearer if you consider that the Lord himselfe lookes upon it as the saddest judgement that ever hee gives his people up to when hee suffers them to imbrew their hands in one anothers blood Take but one or two instances that in the 9. of Isaiah at the 19. verse Through the wrath of the Lord saith the Text the Land is darkned the wrath of God was like a furnace and the smoake of it filled all the Land and the people shall bee as fewell to this fire This was a terrible judgement which is expressed in such dreadfull tearmes darkenesse and devouring fire are horrid things nothing more intolerable then these two But what was this judgement or by what meanes should this fierce wrath of God bee executed marke the next words no man shall spare his brother they shall snatch on their right hand and bee hangry and snatch on their left hand and not bee satisfied they shall every man eate the flesh of his owne arme Ephraim against Manasseh and Manasseh against Ephraim and both of them together helpe to devoure Judah No man ever hated his owne flesh faith the Apostle but this people should bee so blinded and so given up to a reprobate sense that they should devoure and destroy their nearest friends and eate as it were the flesh of their owne armes If ever God give up a people to this that brethren thus come to engage in one anothers blood it is a token that the wrath of God burnes the hottest that it can burne against a Land Take one expression more it is in Jer. 13. 14. I will dash them one against another even the fathers and the sonnes together saith the Lord I will not pitty nor spare nor have mercy but destroy them a strange expression from a God of mercy whose delight is in mercy I will not pity shew no mercy kill kill kill but how shall this be executed why I will dash them one against another without any enemy from abroad there shall be no need to send for strangers the father shall destroy the children and children their fathers and a mans murderers shall be his neighbours or the men of his owne houshold You may by these plainly discerne that God accounts it the terriblest of all judgements to give his people up to destroy each other and therefore it must be acknowledged a great mercy to have it prevented To this I might adde that in Gods book those men that are the occasions of peoples ruining one another are accounted the most ahominable and they that endeavour to prevent it are counted the blessedest men that live this is one of the things that Gods soule hates Even that man that sowes dissention amongst brethren boutifews and kindle-fires are an abhomination to him and he will scatter the people who delight in warre he will destroy the Blood-thirsty man the Peace-makers that labour to compose and comprize differences to keep people from it are blessed Blessed are these Peace-makers they shall truly he called the children of God But to open this truth more fully give me leave to cleare these three things First That Blood-shed warre is a terrible judgement wherever it is fall it out among whom it will Secondly That it is yet a greater judgement when Brethren come to devoure and destroy one another brethren of one Nation Civill warres is a greater judgment then war with Strangers Thirdly and above all The greatest of all judgements is when Gods people who are brethren in the profession of his true Religion come to imbrew their hands one in anothers blood these things opened it will certainly be concluded that Gods mercy in preventing this is most worthy to be acknowledged For the first That to have a people given up to warre and blood and spoile is a great plague You all know in the Scripture it is counted one of Gods sorest judgements Ezek. 14. 21. When I send my foure sore judgements upon Jerusalem the Sword and the Famine and the noy some Beast and the Pestilence to cut off man and beast the Sword is the first and chiefe of Gods sore judgements It is granted that sometimes war is lawfull and necessary and indeed never lawful but when necessary when as the saying is Pax populi patriaeque salus gloria regni when publique Safetie Libertie and Religion have no other way to preserve them under heaven but the Sword the Sword is then lawfull and then necessary but however war may sometimes be lawfull it is alwaies a great judgment at least to the one part if not to both It is the Idea of all miseries that can befall a Countrey nothing thrives where this Woolfe sets his foot and hee that would have a Land-skip of it that would have a representation of war let him but conceive the burning of houses confused noise garments rowled in blood ravishing of women and virgins and dashing of Infants against the stones destroy of trade spoyle of wealth blood and wrath and fury marching every where a Countrey like the land of Eden before the face of man and nothing but a desolate Wildernesse when once it have walked over it a Land sowne with the seed of man and beast fruitfull and flourishing suddenly made an Aceldama a Golgatha a Field of blood or a place of Sculs this is warre in a word if a man would in one short sentence describe a Country to bee most miserable hee need say no more but hic fuit hostilitas Warre hath raged and raigned in this place our selves alas for these yeeres past have had so much experience of it that our women and children are able now to bee Rhetoricians in setting forth the miseries of warre