Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	glory_n	vessel_n	wrath_n	3,740	5	9.3244	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77245	A defence of true liberty from ante-cedent and extrinsecall necessity being an answer to a late book of Mr. Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, intituled, A treatise of liberty and necessity. Written by the Right Reverend John Bramhall D.D. and Lord Bishop of Derry.	Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.	1655 (1655)	Wing B4218; Thomason E1450_1; ESTC R209599	138,196	261

which is good But hatred there signifies Comparative hatred or a less degree of love or at the most a negation of love As Gen. 29.31 When the Lord saw that Leah was hated we may not conclude thence that Jacob hated his Wife The precedent verse doth fully expound the sense ver 30. Jacob loved Rachel more then Leah So Mat. 6.24 No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other So Luke 14.26 If any Man hate not his Father and Mother c. he cannot be my Disciple St. Mathew tells us the sense of it Math. 10.37 He that loveth Father or Mother more then me is not worthy of me Secondly those words ver 15. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy do prove no more but this that the preferring of Jacob before Esau and of the Christians before the Jews was not a debt from God either to the one or to the other but a work of mercy And what of this All men confess that Gods mercies do exceed mans deserts but Gods punishments do never exceed mans misdeeds As we see in the Parable of the Labourers Matth. 20. Friend I do thee no wrong did not I agree with thee for a penny Is it not lawfull for me to do with mine own as I will Is thy eye evill because I am good Acts of Mercy are free but acts of Justice are due That which follows ver 17. comes something nearer the cause The Scripture saith unto Pharoah for this same purpose I have raised thee up that is I have made thee a King or I have preserved thee that I might shew my power in thee But this particle that doth not alwaies signifie the main end of an action but sometimes onely a consequent of it As Matth. 2.15 He departed into Egypt that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet out of Egypt have I called my Son without doubt Josephs aim or end of his journey was not to fulfill prophesies but to save the life of the Child Yet because the fulfilling of the prophecy was a consequent of Josephs journy he saith That it might be fulfilled So here I have raised thee up that I might shew my power Again though it should be granted that this particle that did denote the intention of God to destroy Pharaoh in the Red Sea yet it was not the Antecedent intention of God which evermore respects the good and benefit of the creature but Gods consequent intention upon the praevision of Pharaohs obstinacy that since he would not glorifie God in obeying his word he should glorifie God undergoing his judgements Hitherto we find no aeternal punishments nor no temporal punishment without just deserts It follows ver 18. whom he will he hardneth Indeed hardness of heart is the greatest judgement that Gods lays upon a sinner in this use worse then all the Plagues of Egypt But how doth God harden the heart not by a naturall influence of any evill act or habit into the will nor by inducing the will with perswasive motives to obstinacy and rebellion for God tempteth no man but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and intised Jam. 1.13 Then God is said to harden the heart three wayes First negatively and not positively not by imparting wickedness but by not imparting grace as the Sun descending to the tropick of Capricorne it is said with us to be the cause of Winter that is not by imparting cold but by not imparting heat It is an act of mercy in God to give his grace freely but to detein it is no act of injustice So the Apostle opposeth hardning to shewing of mercy To harden is as much as not to shew mercy Secondly God is said to harden the heart occasionally and not causally by doing good which incorrigible sinners make an occasion of growing worse and worse and doing evill as a Master by often correcting of an untoward Scholar doth accidentally and occasionally harden his heart and render him more obdurate insomuch as he growes even to despise the Rod. Or as an indulgent parent by his patience and gentleness doth incourage an obstinate son to become more rebellious So whether we look upon Gods frequent judgments upon Pharaoh or Gods iterated favours in removing and withdrawing those judgments upon Pharaohs request both of them in their severall kinds were occasions of hardning Pharaohs heart the one making him more presumptuous the other more desperately rebellious So that which was good in it was Gods that which was evill was Pharaohs God gave the occasion but Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration This is cleerly confirmed Gen. 8.15 When Pharaoh saw that there was respite he hardned his heart And Gen. 9.34 When Pharaoh saw that the Rain and the Hail and the Thunders were ceased he sinned yet more and hardned his heart he and his servants So Psal 105.25 He turned their hearts so that they hated his people and dealt subtilly with them That is God blessed the Children of Israel whereupon the Egyptians did take occasion to hate them as is plain Exod. 1. ver 7 8 9 10. So God hardened Pharaohs heart and Pharaoh hardened his own heart God hardened it by not shewing mercy to Pharaoh as he did to Nebuchadnezzar who was as great a sinner as he or God hardned it occasionally but still Pharaoh was the true cause of his own obduration by determining his own will to evill and confirming himself in his obstinacy So are all presumptuous sinners Psal 95.8 Harden not your hearts as in the provocation as in the day of temptation in the wilderness Thirdly God is said to harden the heart permissively but not operatively nor effectively as he who only le ts loose a Greyhound out of the slip is said to hound him at the Hare Will you see plainly what St. Paul intends by hardning Read ver 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known that is by a consequent will which in order of nature followes the provision of sin indured with much long suffering the vessells of wrath fitted to destruction And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessells of mercy c. There is much difference between induring and impelling or inciting the vessells of wrath He saith of the vessells of mercy that God prepared them unto glory But of the vessells of wrath he saith only that they were fitted to destruction that is not by God but by themselves St. Paul saith that God doth endure the vessells of wrath with much long suffering T. H. saith that God wills and effects by the second causes all their actions good and bad that he necessitateth them and determineth them irresistibly to do those acts which he condemneth as evill and for which he punisheth them If doing willingly and enduring If much long suffering and necessitating imply not a contrariety one to another reddat

the like he answereth not a word more than what is already satisfied And therefore I am silent Numb 15. J. D. argument 3 THirdly let this opinion be once radicated in the minds of men that there is no true liberty and that all things come to pass inevitably and it will utterly destroy the Study of piety Who will bewaile his sinns with teares what will become of that Grief that Zeal that Indignation that holy Revenge which the Apostle speaks of if men be once throughly persuaded that they could not shun what they did A man may grieve for that which he could not help but he will never be brought to bewall that as his own fault which flowed not from his own errour but from an antecedent necessity Who will be carefull or sollicitous to perform obedience that believeth there are inevitable bounds and limits set to all his devotions which he can neither go beyond nor come short of To what end shall he pray God to avert those evills which are inevitable or to confer those favours which are impossible We indeed know not what good or evill shall happen to us but this we know that if all things be necessary our devotions and indeavours cannot alter that which must be In a word the onely reason why those persons who tread in this path of fatall destiny do sometimes pray or repent or serve God is because the light of nature and the strength of reason and the evidence of Scripture do for that present transport them from their ill chosen grounds and expell those Stociall fancies out of their heads A complete Stoick can neither pray nor repent nor serve God to any purpose Either allow liberty or destroy Church as well as Commonwealth Religion as well as Policy T. H. HIs third Argument consisteth in other inconveniences which he saith will follow namely impiety neglicence of Religious duties repentance and zeal to Gods service To which I answer as to the rest that they follow not I must confess if we consider far the greatest part of mankind not as they should be but as they are that is as men whom either the study of acquiring wealth or preferments or whom the appetite of sensuall delights or the impatience of meditating or the rash imbracing of wrong principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things that the dispute of this question will rather hurt than help their piety And therefore if he had not desired this answer I would not have written it Nor do I write it but in hope your Lordship and he will keep it in private Nevertheless in very truth the necessity of events does not of it self draw with it any impiety at all For piety consisteth onely in two things One that we honour God in our hearts which is that we think of his power as highly as we can for to honour any thing is nothing els but to think it to be of great power The other that we signifie that honour and esteem by our words and actions which is called cultus or worship of God He therefore that thinketh that all things proceed from Gods Eternall Will and consequently are necessary does he not think God Omnipotent does he not esteem of his power as highly as possible which is to honour God as much as can be in his heart Again he that thinketh so is he not more apt by externall acts and words to acknowledge it then he that thinketh otherwise Yet is this externall acknowledgement the same thing which we call worship So this opinion fortifieth piety in both kinds externally internally and therefore is far from destroying it And for repentance which is nothing but a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way though the cause that made him go astray were necessary yet there is no reason why he should not grieve and again though the cause why he returned into the way were necessary there remaines still the causes of joy So that the necessity of the actions taketh away neither of those parts of repentance grief for the errour nor joy for the returning And for prayer whereas he saith that the necessity of things destroyes prayer I deny it For though prayer be none of the causes that moove Gods will his will being unchangeable yet since we find in Gods Word he will not give his blessings but to those that ask them the motive to prayer is the same Prayer is the gift of God no less than the blessings And the prayer is decreed together in the same decree wherein the blessing is decreed T is manifest that thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past And that which is past is sure and necessary Yet even amongst men thanks is in use as an acknowledgment of the benefit past though we should expect no new benefit for our gratitude And prayer to God Almighty is but thanksgiving for his blessings in generall and though it precede the particular thing we ask yet it is not a cause or means of it but a signification that we expect nothing but from God in such manner as he not as we will And our Saviour by word of mouth bids us pray Thy will not our will be done and by example teaches us the same for he prayed thus Father if it be thy will let this cup pass c. The end of prayer as of thanksgiving is not to move but to honour God Almighty in acknowledging that what we ask can be effected by him only J. D. I Hope T. H. will be persuaded in time that it is not the Covetousness or Ambition or Sensuallity or Sloth or Prejudice of his Readers which renders this doctrine of absolute necessity dangerous but that it is in its own nature destructive to true godliness And though his answer consist more of oppositions than of solutions yet I will not willingly leave one grain of his matter unweighed First he erres in making inward piety to consist meerly in the estimation of the judgment If this were so what hinders but that the Devills should have as much inward piety as the best Christians for they esteem Gods power to be infinite and tremble Though inward piety do suppose the act of the understanding yet it consisteth properly in the act of the will being that branch of Justice which gives to God the honor which is due unto him Is there no Love due to God no Faith no Hope Secondly he erres in making inward piety to ascribe no glory to God but only the glory of his Power or Omnipotence What shall become of all other the divine attributes and particularly of his Goodness of his Truth of his Justice of his mercy which beget a more true and sincere honour in the heart than greatness it self Magnos facile laudamus bonos lubenter Thirdly this opinion of absolute necessity destroyes the truth of God making him to command one thing openly and to necessitate another privately to chide a