Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	great_a	lord_n	spare_v	2,993	5	9.3697	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67018	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, and Aldermen of the city of London, at St. Mary Le Bow on Wednesday the 19th of June, 1695, a day appointed for a solemn fast, for supplicating Almighty God for the pardon of our sins, and imploring his protection of His Majestie's person, by Josiah Woodward ...	Woodward, Josiah, 1660-1712.	1695 (1695)	Wing W3520; ESTC R23478	15,685	41

to the utmost in the proper work of it i. e. Humiliation and Prayer And blessed be God who giveth us this day another season of intercession for mercy before the final execution of his vengeance For it is infinite mercy alone that has suspended our Destruction thus long when our sins have so long and so loudly cry'd for it And surely this suspension of God's wrath gives us room to hope that it is the waiting of his Goodness to be gracious to us We trust that the door of Divine Mercy is not yet nailed up against us by such a severe Decree as that which is thrice mention'd Ezek. 14. v. 14 18 20. that tho' those three Favourites Heaven Noah Daniel and Job stood up in the behalf of that People they could not turn away God's wrath from them Let us therefore cry mightily to God this Day humbly pouring out our melted Souls before him according to the Example of Moses in the Text. And God Almighty grant that our Prayers may find the same acceptance as that of Moses did To this end let us pray with his Fervency and Integrity and say O Lord God destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance which thou hast redeemed thro' thy greatness which thou hast brought forth of Egypt with a mighty hand This Book of Deuteronomy is a brief Rehearsal of the most Memorable Passages which occurr'd to the People of Israel under the Conduct of Moses with very suitable and serious applications all along The Text touches upon their great Transgression in the matter of the Golden Calf a Sin of very great provocation and had been of as dismal Consequence had not Moses with the deepest humiliation and earnestness like that of Wrestling Jacob cry'd and interceded for them as in the Text I Prayed therefore unto the Lord c. In which words these two Observations are obvious to every considerate Mind viz. I. That times of great provocation should be to all the Faithful Servants of God a season of earnest and extraordinary intercession with him Israel falls to Idolatry and Profaneness and Moses throws himself down before the Lord to asswage his Wrath and solicit his mercy I prayed therefore unto the Lord c. II. That a People's profession of the true Religion and being those which God has signally delivered and defended in times past may make an humble Plea with God for farther Deliverance Destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance which thou hast redeemed thro' thy greatness c. 1. In the first place let us take notice That times of great wickedness and provocation should be a season for good People's earnest and assiduous Intercession with God The greater the sin of Israel was the longer and the more earnestly did Moses cry to God for Mercy towards them A People are not in the last extremity whilst they have a Moses left among them A Righteous and Zealous Intercessor stands a People in great stead in time of Wrath. Insomuch that when God fully determines to destroy any People he first stops the mouths of Intercessors As Jer. 7. 16. Pray not thou for this People neither lift up Cry nor Prayer for them neither make intercession for them for I will not hear thee And in this very case of the Golden Calf tho' at the first there seem'd little hope of obtaining mercy with God when he said in his anger to Moses Let me alone that I may consume them Exod. 32. 10. Yet after Moses's humble and earnest Prayer in the Text it had this effect That the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his People Exod. 32. 14. Yet they were not to come off clear without many a blow of Correction for this Fault as they were told v. 34. Nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them When God took up the Rod to lash them on other occasions he gave them a blow or two the more for this which the Jews knew very well insomuch that in most of their Sufferings afterwards they used to say that there was a hair of the Golden Calf in them But still it was the Chyrurgeons Launce not the Executioner's Ax. And this was happily procured by means of Moses's Intercession And that in this method 1. He falls down before the Lord. 2. He Fasts Forty days and Forty nights 3. He Prays with great Fervour and a sort of undeniable urgency for the Publick Good First He falls down before the Lord. This is twice mentioned in the verse before the Text v. 25. By which must be meant either that he fell down on his Knees or more probably on his Face before the Lord as he did Numb 16. 22. And as our blessed Saviour himself did Mat. 26. 39. Which shews us that reverence of bodily gesture is very requisite in the solemn Worship of God Methinks I cannot imagine how any sober Person can think otherwise or chuse to do otherwise Our Bodies are an Essential part of our selves and we expect to be glorified in them as well as in our Souls and therefore we ought to glorifie God in our Souls and in our Bodies which are his 1 Cor. 6. 20. We must indeed first and principally look to the Composure and Frame of our Hearts And then where no impediment prevents us we ought to dispose our Bodies too into a very reverend and humble posture that one part of us may not seem to disallow and undo that which the other is doing 2. Moses Fasts Forty Days and Forty Nights being miraculously supported for he kept a very strict Fast as he describes it v. 18. I did neither eat bread nor drink water being earnestly intent on the work in hand Now tho' we cannot imitate this for so many days yet methinks such as are healthy may well bear it for one day Not that there is any Spiritual Holiness in the bare Act of Fasting any more than in Eating but that it better conduces to the proper work of a day of Humiliation and is indeeed a natural expression of self-abhorrency and of the inward bitterness and affliction of the Soul If we have lost a dear Relation we forget to eat our bread and all our usual refreshments are insipid to us And surely it cannot be otherwise when we are duly convinc'd that by our wickedness we are like to sin away our God our Mercies our Eternal Bliss The Prophet speaking of the sorrow of Penitents says They shall mourn as one that mourneth for his only Son and be in bitterness as one that is in bitterness for his first-born Zech. 12. 10. This this my Brethren is our proper Behaviour this day We are to lament crying Sins and departing Mercies yea I fear a departing God Let this engage our hearts in a more conscientious discharge of the duties of this day than is usual As for such as give their minds to business or vanity in the Mornings of our Fast-days and after this come coldly and

elevated Devotions this day Let us indeed afflict our Souls before the All-seeing God lest our mock-Fasts make work for real ones and lest we hasten that wrath which we seem to deprecate Let us indeed do the needful work of Intercessors with God and that we may not want Arguments to plead for mercy the latter part of my Text will suggest something apposite to our Case which is summed up in my second observation viz. That a Peoples profession of the true Religion and being those whom God had signally deliver'd and defended in times past may be humbly pleaded with God as an argument for further Deliverance For thus Moses prays and pleads in the Text. O Lord destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance which thou hast redeemed thro' thy Greatness which thou hast brought forth of the Land of Egypt with a mighty hand In which he seems to argue thus Oh Lord may it please thee to make the procedure of thy Providence towards this People suitable to what it has been hitherto Thou hast hitherto preserved and defended them by astonishing dispensations We can never forget that dreadful succession of miraculous Plagues which thou broughtest upon our Enemies the Egyptians How grosly thou didst infatuate them and how eminently thou didst inspirit us and by what a wonderful Revolution thou wast pleased to free us from their slavery Oh Let us not now perish by that powerful hand by which we were so lately delivered 'T is true we are guilty of great provocations but thy mercy is greater than our perverseness Oh spare a very sinful People for thine infinite mercy sake Lest when the Egyptians hear of our destruction they triumph in our ruine in the Wilderness as much as we did in the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea Yea lest they think thy power oftner displayed in Judgment than in Mercy This is the purport of the Plea in my Text which may be reduced to these four Particulars 1. He pleads for mercy for them on the account of their relation to God as they were his People Destroy not thy People and thine Inheritance They were a peculiar People by a very singular and selecting love of God Deut. 4. 43. Hath God essayed to go and take him a Nation from the midst of another Nation by Signs Wonders and by a mighty hand as the Lord your God did you c. So that now the honour of God seemed to be concerned for their preservation Now all that profess the incorrupt Religion of our Lord Jesus Christ may form an Argument somewhat like this and say Lord we are Christians we cleave to the Doctrine of thy Beloved Son for his sake whose Name we bear and for the honour of thy visible Church on Farth destroy us not And tho' alas too too few of us are duly influenced by our holy Faith yet we generally avow thee thee alone to be our God in opposition to Idols and other Gods Oh that we could say we are Christians in opposition to Hypocrisie and Prophaneness too then our plea would be irresistible II. There may be a further plea inferr'd from Moses his Prayer thus viz. For as much as there is seldom the profession of the true Religion without some hearty and entire embracers of it So that an Argument may be made like that of Abraham's Gen. 18. 24. If there be Fifty or Forty or but Ten Righteous Persons wilt thou not spare the corrupt generality for the sake of this little sound part This we have great hope may be pleaded in the behalf of this Nation yea of this City Even in a far greater Number than that which Abraham began his Plea with But truly the number of the Good is too too small And indeed except the Lord had left unto us this small Remnant we had been altogether as Sodom and like unto Gomorrah Isa 1. 9 But we trust we shall fare the better for the sake of these III. Another part of Moses's Plea is grounded on the past Mercies which God had vouchsaf'd to this People This is the People says he which thou hast redeemed thro' thy greatness and brought out of Egypt with thy mighty hand In this respect also some Plea may be made for England It is a Land which God has by a Series of Wonders freed from the Slavery and Corruptions of Popery An infinite Blessing which we have now enjoy'd for almost two Centuries of Years And tho' there have been many Combinations and restless Plottings against us yet blessed be God they have hitherto proved abortive And we are at this day thro' infinite mercy a Free People enjoying the blessed Beams of the Gospel and the Just and Antient Rights of our Mother-Country O! may that Bountiful God who has hitherto thus seasonably thus marvelously appeared for us still be our Guardian May his infinite Goodness never leave us but flow down with the same exuberant Streams on us and our Posterity to the latest Generations So that we may here say as Solomon The Lord our God be with us as He was with our Fathers let him not leave us nor forsake us 1 Kings 8. 57. IV. Another part of Moses his Plea is taken from the Insolence of the Enemy ver 28. Lest the Land whence thou broughtest us out say Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the Land which he promised them and because he hated them he hath brought them out to slay them in the Wilderness The World is apt to judge of the goodness of the Cause by its success and to make very wild Interpretations of the Language of Providence Wicked men are apt to conclude that God is on their side when their Mischievous Designs take effect So that on this account also we may form a Plea for Mercy For if Protestants be consumed the Papists will be sure to glory in their Ruine as in the Fall of Miscreant Hereticks Especially since their Cardinal Champion makes outward Prosperity and Victory the mark of his splendid Church * Ultima Nota est faelicitas temporalis Divinitùs ijs collata qui Ecclesiam defenderunt Bellarmin de Notis Ecclesiae cap. 18. Which by his leave would better have fitted the mouth of a Turk than a Christian For Mahomet proposed to propagate his Faith by the Sword which our Blessed Saviour never did but the very contrary Now therefore since the French Papists have so glutted themselves already with the groans and blood of the Protestants in their own Country should their bloody Designs against us prosper too how would they blaspheme the Reformed Religion and triumph in their own Delusions May the Lord of Armies therefore enfeeble the Power and blast the Designs of those Massacring Legions And if our sins are so ripe that Infinite Justice can spare us no longer nor infinite patience any longer suspend our punishment may we fall into the hands of God rather than Men. Rather the Pestilence or Scarcity or any earthly Plague